Several days ago, some Assembly Republicans offered to begin the process of protecting the schools and protecting the taxpayer’s property taxes.
The Assembly Republicans want to go ahead and pass the part of the budget that will fund the K-12 school systems and also protect the property taxes from going too much higher.
I figured that since the Republicans were doing what they could to move towards a resolution on two very important issues, that the Democrats would easily jump on board.
This is a big olive branch that has been handed to the Democrats to go ahead and address the spending needed for all of the school districts across the state.
Not only did the Democrats and the Governor not accept the olive branch, now they are lashing out at the Republicans.
Frankly, I am rather surprised by the reaction of the Governor and the Democrats.
According to the Governor and the Democrats, the issue of spending for K-12 schools is their number one issue.
It is rather stunning that the Democrats insist that the schools wait even longer to find out how much.
This is what the Democrats are saying their reason is for not wanting to negotiate is-
But any Assembly-passed spending bills would not become law, since Democrats who control the Senate are insisting that a compete budget be negotiated. Doyle agreed this week, saying all major spending programs -- schools, aid to local governments, health care and prisons -- are closely related.
A Senate Democratic leader made the same point Friday. "You can't do piecemeal budgets," Sen. Russ Decker (D-Weston), cochairman of the Legislature's Finance Committee, said in an interview.
Hum? That is some excuse.
Let us think about this for a second.
Isn’t this how most budgets are debated? Piecemeal. Section by section. Line by line.
This has been the process for as long as our government has been taxing and spending the money of Americans.
How often do we see spending bills being debated after a budget is passed, by not only our national legislatures, but our state legislators also.
Every single one of these spending bills affects the bottom line in our budgets.
Even after a budget is finally passed, billions of dollars more is spent throughout the entire budget cycle. That is what the legislature does, they spend money continuously. In fact, it would be nice to get them to slow down the money spending process a little.
So the excuses that the Democrats and the Governor are making, just do not fly.
The legislators could even do something simple like offer up a base budget that will cover K-12 education costs and local government aid, and then the next two years battling over tax and spending increases, as individual bills.
In fact, just yesterday a suggestion very similar to this one was offered up by a REPUBLICAN. Thank you Rep. Albers! (H/T Boots and Sabers)
Common sense would dictate that the first step of the committee would be to agree on an appropriate level of government spending, with the next discussion being what our priorities are. The Democrats at the table instead have focused on which taxes to increases.
Right now, ONLY the Republicans in our state legislature are offering suggestions on how to break the budget impasse. The Republicans have now offered up two suggestions on how to move the process forward.
What have the Democrats offered?
The Democrats offer up no suggestions on how to move forward. They are clutching onto their tax increases with both fists and refusing to negotiate.
For that matter, the Governor has offered up absolutely no suggestions on how to move forward. He is in China.
Where is the leadership on the side of the Democrats?
Come on Democrats, it is time for you to belly up to the negotiating table and offer up some solutions.
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