Time Magazine had in its cover this week, a picture of Ronald Reagan with a tear streaming down his cheek. The message: The apparent end of the conservative movement. That is why it is truly historic to have a budget agreement so early in the legislative session. This is also a watershed moment in terms of conservative goals. The budget agreement accomplishes three major conservative goals; the acceleration of tax relief to get the income tax rate down; the practical elimination of the franchise tax on small businesses (a nuisance tax that Governor Keating fought to remove his entire eight years in office) and the passage of a childcare tax credit for stay at home parents (something House Republicans have fought to pass the past two years only to see it die in the Senate previously). The budget deal also includes a top-to-bottom outside audit of the Department of Corrections (again something the House GOP tried to pass the past two years; Henry vetoed it previously). The budget deal will also expand the Academic Achievement Award performance pay plan for the best performing teachers. The AAA program was first passed by the House GOP in 2005; $2 million will be added to this cash bonus plan. The overall budget is truly fiscally-restrained with no new employees, programs or debt: more than half the state agencies included in the general appropriations portion of the agreement will receive a less than one percent increase, and other agencies will receive less than two percent increases. Only vital state services – such as education, public safety and transportation – will receive a more than two percent increase. It certainly is a conservative budget in stark contrast to the $1 billion in new spending and debt that the governor proposed in his executive budget at the beginning of the legislative session. Not surprisingly the governor’s office has lashed out against the budget deal – because it is a conservative budget. Inexplicably, they’ve even attacked the idea of having an outside audit of the Department of Corrections. The mechanics of this are now clear: the governor seems to have backed himself into a corner with veto threats (reminiscent of Clinton insisting he was “relevant” after the ’94 elections). But 90 percent of the Legislature has now passed the budget deal – with a clear majority in the House and a unanimous vote in the Senate (both suggesting likely veto proof majorities). The question is: Did we see in just one week, Governor Henry melt into lame duck status, only two months into his second term of office? Most capitol observers say they can’t imagine how Henry could have handled this worse, and the scuttlebutt is that Meacham really got Henry into a box on this. It was also astounding to see 16 House Democrats vote against the package which included the very education funding they’d been railing about for three weeks! The worst example of this hypocrisy was probably Rep. Jerry McPeak who spent weeks spouting theatrical red-faced speeches and holding staged press conferences on education funding. Then he turned around and voted against that funding yesterday – which included more in supplemental funding than he’d been saying the schools needed!

Labels: Brad Henry, OK Legislature

Posted at 3/22/2007 12:20:00 PM