Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Legislature's self-imposed 100 day deadline to complete its work in this session has come and gone and still there is no state budget in sight. All other legislative work has backed up in a log-jam as a result of the budget impasse. (This is a blessing in disguise).
Oh sure, on Monday GOP leaders teased the media with an announcement that they had mapped out a balanced-budget plan that would not raise taxes – but they would not reveal any specifics. Budget balance reached, GOP says
No one on Monday was predicting a budget breakthrough.
"It's not locked in at this point," said Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria.
“It's not necessarily an agreement. It's just a proposal,” he said. “This is what we hope we will be able to work through as a starting point and it could change, probably will change.”
House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, portrayed the plan as a list of options.
The GOP leadership insane clown posse just did a press release to get a headline in the Arizona Republic to coincide with the 100 day day legislative deadline.
According to the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) the tentative plan to vote a budget packet out of committee on April 23 was shelved because of the sheer volume of work needed to go through the draft proposal, according to Republican leaders.
On April 23, the Senate assigned 10 budget bills to the Appropriations Committee, "just in case members of the majority come to an agreement among themselves."
I guess this would be the openness and transparency in the budget process that the GOP leadership promised everyone at the start of this session.
The House Democrats issued a press release calling on Republican leaders to release the details of the budget proposal Republicans now say is completed but refuse to reveal to the public.
Republican leaders have kept their budget plans hidden for months in meetings behind closed doors, shutting out Democrats and other Republicans alike.
The clandestine group has delayed the budget process and legislative session almost to May and leaves the state with only 40 legislative days left to solve the fiscal crisis. While legislators waited, taxpayers shelled out more than $10,000 a day in the first 100 days to pay lawmakers’ salaries and per diem, not counting staff and operating costs.
“We’re costing taxpayers $10,000 a day and they deserve to see some results for this major expense,” said House Democratic Leader David Lujan. “The public deserves to know the details of a budget that likely will negatively affect middle-class families and their children and be a part of this process. Now this group says they have a completed plan, but won’t share it with the public?”
“We and our Republican colleagues had great expectations for transparency and openness to the public for the budget process this session,” said Assistant House Democratic Leader Kyrsten Sinema.
In fact, it is the House Democrats who have released the state’s only detailed comprehensive budget solution, back in March. http://www.strongerarizona.com/ The plan utilizes every federal stimulus dollar available to Arizona, makes strategic cuts, reduces government waste, closes tax loopholes and restores funding necessary for middle-class families.
The problem for the minority party is that if they're not at the table, they're likely on the menu.
The present state budget impasse is solely the result of a divided Republican Caucus that is opposed to the Republican Governor's "5 Point Plan" for a state budget. These dysfunctional Republicans can't even come to an agreement among themselves how to proceed on the state budget.
"For the first time since the session began, the Senate Appropriations Committee scheduled a hearing on budget legislation for fiscal year 2010. But the hearing was canceled a day before its scheduled date of April 23." (AZ Capitol Times)
The committee has since posted a new agenda and will meet on April 28. We'll see.
It's long past time for the GOP leadership insane clown posse to get its act together and put its cards on the table — let's see what you got. I'll call the bet that you do not have the votes to pass a state budget that can get by Jan Brewer.