Sunday, March 26, 2000
GOP budget turnabout not fair play
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FRANKFORT — Just look at what a couple of hundred years of single-party rule does to some people, namely the Democrats in the General Assembly.
Statehouse Dems are flustered and flummoxed, angry and full of angst. They're used to loading up the state budget with projects and spending, shipping it down the hall to the Senate, waiting while the Republicans groused about too much spending and then cheering when the Democratic majority finally rubber-stamped the deal.
Some of the projects have certainly been worthwhile over the years, such as the Northern Kentucky Convention Center and the science building at Northern Kentucky University. Others have been so blatantly pork you expected to hear oinks and squeals as the budget moved through the Capitol.
Such was life in the legislature when the place was controlled by the Democrats since ... well, since forever.
This year is different. This year, the Republicans are on equal footing. They have the Senate. They have power. They have the ability and the will to turn back Democratic efforts to spend millions of dollars on new projects while pushing for a tax increase.
I don't know if the Democrats are being arrogant or dumb or both. They want projects and higher taxes? Why don't they just ask the Republicans to serve punch at the October wedding of Lt. Gov. Steve Henry and Miss America Heather Renee French?
The GOP message could not have been any clearer to Gov. Paul Patton and the Democrats — don't send us a budget with new taxes.
Did the governor and his Democratic colleagues listen?
Nope.
Heck, Mr. Patton started pushing an increase in the gas tax last year when he was running for re-election. After he won a second term he rolled into the General Assembly session with a tax hike plan that was so confusing it looked like an aerial photo of the Fort Washington Way project.
Finally realizing the tax plan wasn't going to fly in the Senate, he pared it down, with a tax increase on telecommunications services the only increase left in his budget.
Sorry, the Republicans said last week. We tried to make clear we don't want, nor will we approve, any new taxes at all.
A laudable goal. But also rife with political and leadership pitfalls.
The Republicans haven't actually handled this budget mess with a lot of skill or statesmanship. In fact, they got the keys to the Senate and have acted like a bunch of teen-age boys whose parents just left for the weekend. The lads decided to throw a party.
In other words, they've made a mess of the place.
While drawing lines in the sand and throwing out quotable sound bites about the budget like this gem from Senate President David Williams — “It's about people, not pork” — the Republicans have managed to do what they always seem to do — look mean, shortsighted and ill-
equipped to lead when it comes to the budget.
I don't know if the Senate Republicans are being arrogant or dumb or both. (Where I have heard that before?)
They take out money for an orphanage in Louisville but propose doubling the size of their leadership's staff. They want more money for stationery to write to their constituents, but they dis community centers in Bellevue and Dayton and sidewalk and street repair projects in some Kenton County communities.
They didn't give their budget proposal to Democrats on the Senate budget committee until 15 minutes before the vote. And then, the next day, it took hours for reporters and the public to get copies.
When the Democrats made slick little moves like those when they were in power, the Republicans hollered like Bob Huggins. Paybacks are hell, but they are also petty, particularly when the GOP promised it wouldn't use the Senate majority to punish Democrats. So much for that pledge.
And finally, the Senate Republicans propose hiring more tax collectors to increase revenue, the theory being that more money will be collected if more people are out there
looking for it.
What's that? Republicans wanting to hire additional state employees? Better watch it — they're starting to sound like Democrats.
No one is in more of a hot seat that Sen. Jack Westwood, the Erlanger Republican up for re-election this fall. Mr. Westwood is not only a member of the Senate budget committee, but he has taken the knife to projects that will benefit his Kenton County Senate district.
No matter how hard he tries to portray a senior citizen center in Elsmere, computers for cops in Erlanger, parks in Taylor Mill and Independence and a sports complex in Covington as pork, he will have a hard time convincing voters. Particularly when his Democratic opponent, Jaimie Henson of Independence, will bring up those items every time she takes a breath between now and November.
Along the way there has been the unusual name-calling and chest-pounding. Republicans just want to embarrass the governor and show they can beat him, Mr. Patton has charged.
The Republicans are acting like Newt Gingrich and threatening to shut down the government because they won't agree to a budget, fumed House President Pro Tem Larry Clark, a Louisville Democrat.
Now there's talk of a special session — which costs taxpayers about $40,000 a day — in May or June so lawmakers can pass a budget.
Who loses in all this? Who else — the public. They get leaders who can't sit down and compromise — lawmakers on one side who want to show how tough they are with their new majority and legislators on the other side eager to prove they still have clout in Frankfort.
It's democracy at work, but with these participants it just isn't working.
Patrick Crowley covers Kentucky politics for The Kentucky Enquirer. His column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. He can be reached at crowleys@cinci.infi.net, (606) 578-5581, or (502) 875-7526 in Frankfort.
