Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > February > 18
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Senate ought to reconsider spending limits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Amid the clutter, little noticed in the shuffle, important ideas take shape under the Gold Dome. State Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) brought one to the floor Wednesday, a crucial piece of what should be the fiscal conservatives’ small-government revolution in Georgia. It failed while gaining but a single Democratic vote, State Sen. J.B. Powell of Blythe.
Rogers’ proposed constitutional amendment would have given Georgians a chance to impose reasonable controls on state spending — reasonable and flexible controls that don’t so much cap spending as make it transparent. In the spirit of almost all reforms that conservatives are proposing here and nationally on health care, education and personal retirement planning, change starts with giving people information and the means to act on it.
That’s the core of Rogers’ SR 20, which would have limited the growth in state spending to “an amount equal to the fiscal year spending in any of the three immediately preceding fiscal years; or an amount equal to the immediately preceding fiscal year spending adjusted for state government inflation and population change.”
Excess revenue collected could go only to pay down debt, build a rainy-day fund to cover future economic downturns or fund increases in student enrollment. Or it would be returned to taxpayers. “When we do overtax, we have priorities for where that money should go,” Rogers explained.
Future legislators are not without flexibility. When reserves are gone, the governor can declare an emergency and legislators by two-thirds majority can agree to higher spending.
Opponents are quick to point to Colorado, and problems that arose in 2002, a decade after voters capped spending at inflation plus population growth.
Rogers, at 38, is one of the new wave of young conservatives who are coming into their own. They come to power with philosophical certainty but, as he demonstrated last year on immigration, without the rigidity that sometimes destroys new ideas before they are fully vetted.
He listens to critics, revises legislation without gutting or derailing it and then argues from the certainty of examined beliefs. The Colorado bogeyman is an example. To critics, a voter-imposed spending limitation was a disaster, prompting voters to agree to a five-year moratorium in 2005.
State Sen. Kasim Reed, a quite capable Democrat and future mayor of Atlanta, challenged Rogers on Colorado’s experience and the impact of spending limitations on Georgia’s AAA bond rating. Weak-willed and uncertain conservatives die here, completely cowed by the suggestion that Georgia’s triple-A bond rating could be jeopardized.
“I find no inherent connection between the two,” Rogers replied. In fact, he argued, the existence of a rainy day fund and a long-stable, predictable budget, should reassure creditors.
“I have addressed all the problems that were brought to us,” he said. Colorado had no reserves. Voters had, too, approved a conflicting requirement that education spending increase by 1 percent over inflation, despite collections. As a result, other services took an inordinate hit.
“In 2001, Colorado had the greatest drought in 240 years,” said Rogers, and tourism tanked in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The two caused state revenue to drop 12 percent in one year, he noted.
The Colorado spending limitation required legislators to go back to voters for permission to raise taxes. Rogers’ doesn’t. Georgia’s governor could have declared an emergency. He provided a spending option for education. And he provides the reserve fund option that would have carried Georgia through the Colorado downturn.
Budget experts have looked at Georgia’s experience over the last 20 years. About half the time, Georgia would have been over the cap and about half the time under. Putting aside money in the good years would have carried the state through the lean. As Rogers pointed out repeatedly, legislators always get to spend more money than they did the previous year. “Under the plan the limit would always go up,” said Rogers. “To suggest that there would be draconian cuts flies in the face of reality.”
Transparency. Accountability. It is not draconian. It’s the discipline politicians need in spending other people’s money.
It failed Wednesday because only one Democrat supported it. On Tuesday, the Senate has a chance to reconsider. It should.
• Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
Permalink | Comments (102) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
