It’s Show Time At the Capital

Don’t be fooled by our legislators’ budgetary rhetoric in the House of Representatives.   The House has proposed 11 tax measures totaling approximately $615 million in additional funds to help plug the $1.6 billion deficit.   Our esteemed legislators have promised to dedicate all the new tax revenues to the state’s colleges and universities and claim that this money will protect higher ed from a 20% cut in funding next fiscal year.  Even with these measures, the budget is still $1 billion short.

However, the public needs to focus its attention on two aspects of these latest rescue funding bills.  One, they were collectively passed using political trickery, and two, with the exception of a measure dealing with taxing business inventory,  none will likely be approved by Jindal.  And ALL of our legislators are fully away of these facts.

The state constitution clearly states that all tax type revenue bills must be passed by a 2/3 vote of the legislators in the House.   This was not the case.  Most were passed by a simple majority and will be subject to legal challenge. 

Not one of the bills passed included an informal polling of the legislators to see if they would support a veto override session if Jindal doesn’t go along with them.  In fact, in all the dribble that has be pouring out of the state capital these last three weeks, there is NO mention that such action will most likely have to occur.  One would expect that, if the legislators were sincerely concerned about getting their bills approved by the governor, they would indicate to him, up front, that they have enough votes to override any veto threat. That might certainly alter Jindal’s behavior, since he is so concerned about his national image. 

Now it’s show time for the Senate, for this week they will have to decide if they will approve the House bills and send them to Jindal for his signature.

 

Although I do not purport to be a psychic along the lines of Dionne Warwick, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that our legislators in the House are all about putting on a grand show with full knowledge of how this will all end at the final curtain.  Most of these revenue bills will never make it out of the governor’s office or will end up in legal challenges resulting in another 20% reduction in college funding and even more cuts to health care.  And all our legislators will respond with, “Well we tried.  The governor just wouldn’t go along with us,” in an attempt to absolve them of all responsibility.

Let the show begin!