Legislative Republicans, not having had a majority in the legislature since 1958, and only twice had a majority in one house of the Legislature since then (1968-70 and 1994-96) won a big one. Despite the Governor’s bluff and bluster, he ultimately agreed to a couple of small changes in the deal cut by the Legislative leaders, and it appears that the budget will now be signed.
Without new taxes.
Let’s face it. That is what this fight was all about, and the Republican Legislators won that fight hands down, no questions asked. They did a Pacquiao on the Democrats and the Governor, and got a budget without new taxes. Not a good budget, but, quite frankly, no budget has been good in the last 10 years. Ever since Gray Davis began the spending splurge that this current Governor continued, the budget roller coaster has sailed up and down with the economy, from spendthrift to crisis to spendthrift to crisis. If the Democrats and the Governor don’t end the spendthrift times, we will move from the current crisis to the next very soon.
As I said before, the one good thing about a budget that uses gimmicks to balance a budget is that the bill for those gimmicks usually comes due when revenues are increasing, thereby limiting the ability of the spendthrifts in the Legislature to spend that money on program expansion. It is a sort of budget discipline that slow the onslaught of the next budget crisis. Since the Democrats and this Governor never pressed for budget reforms when the state was awash with money, the only way to get them to stop spending it in the future is to build it into the budget as a credit card payment. Not smart budgeting, but practical. I’ll take practical over smart, when it appears that smart will never occur.
So it’s a W for the reps. They should go home proud of their accomplishment, apologize to no one for what they have done, and gird their loins for next year’s fight. It is going to be even nastier.