Dewhurst & Craddick cancel LBB meeting
by David Benzion · 01/04/2007 1:50 pmYesterday evening, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and House Speaker (tick tock tick tock) Tom Craddick cancelled today’s meeting of the Legislative Budget Board, issuing the following statement:
“We are firmly committed to delivering the nearly $14 billion in local school property tax relief approved by the legislature last May and promised to the people of Texas for the next biennium. It is clear, however, that we need more time to discuss the options for setting a new spending limit to allow for this tax relief with members returning to Austin next week. For this reason, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s Legislative Budget Board meeting until January 11, at which time we will adopt the lowest spending limit recommended by the LBB.”
We turned to an anonymous yet well-informed Austin observer to read between the lines; here is his analysis:
I think that Craddick doesn’t want to take action on this prior to the [House Speaker] election because this is a hot potato. Whatever the LBB does they — and he — will be vulnerable to criticism. Criticism about budgeting and Constitutional fidelity are things he doesn’t need while he is working for re-election.
If they re-adjust last session’s numbers, they are tacitly admitting that the CLOUT lawsuit has merit and they were violating the Constitution.
If they DON’T re-adjust last session’s numbers, they are saying that they didn’t violate the Constitution, and they will be embarrassed when they lose.
If they use the state personal income method to calculate next biennium’s budget that is dictated by the statute (which is Unconstitutional, because the Constitution dictates the growth for the state economy method) they are in the same position.
If they ignore the statute, they have to explain why, which means they are agreeing with the CLOUT lawsuit that the statute is unconstitutional.
If they don’t set a new limit, the legislature is stuck with the limit enacted in the last session — which means they can’t spend the $15 billion surplus. That will be unacceptable to the members, and the LBB will say that the way for the Legislature to spend anyway is to declare an emergency and spend all the money. That is what they want to do, I think, because declaring an emergency avoids the limits on spending and allows the Lege to escape the threat of a repeat of the CLOUT lawsuit for the current session budget.
So there you go.
[Hat-tip: Anonymous yet well-informed Austin observer.]
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If any of these guys were worth a plug nickel, they would call a press conference and come clean with Texas citizens about all this chicanery. They would put the best interests and the future of the State of Texas and its citizens first and foremost. They would put a stop to all these egos, games, legal parsings and minor league pissing contests and do what is
RIGHT. This whole mess just nauseates me.
How about my change?
If i pay for a $10 item with a $20 i want my change!
David, I could have shortened that whole thing to read: Dewhurst & Craddick cancel meeting to invent new lies to justify broken campaign promises to Texas taxpayers.
See, wasn’t that easier, and far fewer wasted electrons.
#3 Big45Iron– we buy our electrons in bulk through a state-subsidized blogging cooperative, so why get chintzy?
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Who was it that said,” All I know is what I read in the newspapers”? 1/31/07 is just around the corner and my taxes darn sure didn’t go down. How about more on the CLOUT lawsuit. It has been a long time since I took Texas history,but, it seems to me that they aren’t suppose to have a surplus.
It looks like a no-win situation for those “losers”. Why not just “DO THE RIGHT THING”!!! I know that is a new concept to them. Try it, the VOTERS might like it!!!
Sounds like the ‘good ole boys’ have yet to learn their lesson, they are digging the hole deeper and deeper.
Well I guess that’s good, cause we can fit more of them in it that way.
Declare an emergency, and send the National Guard to the border at TX expense. When they hit the border, just forget to hit the brakes until they have the Lone Star Flag flying from the capital of Mexico, DF.