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DEL.ICIO.USIf the Legislature’s budget fight is about principle, Republicans could be in trouble
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There are signs that this budget stand-off between Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson could be more serious than it looks.
Meltdowns over how to divvy up the millions and billions in budget bills are common, nearly annual events in the Legislature. Yet because they involve mere dollars, most of these disputes can be resolved with Solomon-like precision. Put the baby on the table and split the difference.
But the current crisis is rapidly developing into a dangerous matter of Republican principle. There is no baby to chop in two. And there are the voters of the GOP base to worry about. Principle makes it hard to back down in front of them.
Each year, the governor of Georgia estimates how much money tax revenues will bring in the next year. Because our constitution prohibits a deficit, state spending is usually a notch or so below that.
Which means that each year, the state usually gathers in excess revenue. This year the amount is about $700 million. Most of it will go to local schools, to help pay for each year’s unpredicatable increase in the number of students.
When Democrats controlled the Capitol the remainder would be divided among the state’s most powerful lawmakers, and sent to their districts — to pay for anything from museums to libraries to high school band uniforms.
Republicans were appalled. In 2002, candidate Sonny Perdue and nearly every other Republican on the ballot called for the abolition of the supplemental budget. This year, Governor Perdue included in the “little budget” a healthy portion of his “Go Fish Georgia” program.
House Republicans have followed Perdue’s lead with projects of their own, but were stopped in their tracks this week when Cagle, the new kid on the block, announced that he wanted to do what he’d promised while campaigning. Cagle wanted all excess spending stripped from the supplemental budget.
On Friday, Cagle told reporters he wouldn’t back down.
You can say that the newbie lieutenant governor is engaging in holier-than-thou grandstanding, that he’s making an early bid for the 2010 race for the big house on West Paces Ferry. And all of that is probably true. Even so, the grandstanding is resonating with the anti-tax base of the state GOP.
“I think the lieutenant governor absolutely has his priorities in line,” said Jared Thomas, Georgia director of Americans for Prosperity. Thomas has declared that excess spending in the supplemental budget will be a “graded vote.” In other words, come the ’08 election, his group will be scoring Republican lawmakers on the issue.
“We take in more money than we say we need, and then we look for new ways to spend it. I don’t think that that’s being a good steward of Georgia’s tax dollars,” Thomas said.
Americans for Prosperity is a new group in the state, and its clout hasn’t been proven. Thomas is more important because of his immediate past. He was the campaign manager for Ralph Reed, the Republican icon whom Cagle roughly pushed aside last summer to get where he is now.
That’s how much the spending issue matters to some Republicans.
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