Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

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Budget Update- Monday at 10:25PM

Tonight the budget bills were all re-referred from the Senate Appropriations Committee to the Senate Education Committee. The Senate Republican Leadership did this committee assignment switch after Senate Appropriations failed to be capable of moving any of the budget bills forward. (Note, this morning Republican Senators [Ron]Gould, [Jack] Harper and Steve Pierce all voted against the first general appropriation bill along with the one Democrat who was present, Paula Aboud, thus defeating the main budget bill). This is likely the first time in legislative history that the budget bills went out of a legislative committee other than the designated appropriations committee process.

In Senate Education, the various budget bills passed along a party-line vote. The Republicans voted in support (Senators [John] Huppenthal, Linda Gray, [Jonathan] Paton and Sylvia Allen). The Democrats opposed the budget (Senators Aboud, [Leah] Landrum-Taylor and [Linda] Lopez).

One interesting thing happened on the flat tax proposal. Senator Huppenthal amended the bill to create a new tax credit program for teachers for the purchase of classroom supplies. The tax credit would be in an amount up to $1,000 per year for classroom supplies and materials that were purchased by teachers in grades K-12. The stated purposes is “to provide income tax relief for teachers who personally purchase school supplies and materials for use in the classroom.” Before anyone gets excited about this, you need to know that this amendment is nothing more than a political ploy at this point. The flat tax proposal is said to be dead in the water when it goes to the floor for a full Senate vote. This proposal was amended to the flat tax proposal, thus if that main bill fails, the whole flat tax and income tax credit also fails. Keep in mind that Senator Huppenthal has announced his intentions to run for Superintendent of Public Instruction and how better to appeal to teachers to be able to say he personally amended the budget to give them a $1,000 tax credit. It’s the whole bait and switch…be weary and see it for what it is.

The Senate is adjourned until 9:30 on Tuesday morning. The House is adjourned until 9AM. The House has announced a House Appropriations Committee for 9:05AM to hear the sales tax referral and the flat tax proposal.

It’s safe to say this process is a long way from over. There is still not enough Republican votes to pass the sales tax referral. The Governor has publically stated that if the budget gets sent to her without the sales tax referral, then she will veto the entire budget package.

Tomorrow, June 30, is the last day for the legislature to produce a balanced budget according to the constitutional mandated duty. Getting the magic 16-31-1 to pass a budget is looking pretty dim with only 25 hours to go before government shut down.