Son of TABOR 2 – Tea-Publican tyranny run amok

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

While I am on the subject of the Goldwater Institute's ready and willing stooge, Rep. Justin Olson (R-Mesa), this piece of work is up to something even more nefarious.

Olson is proposing that the House adopt a procedural rule that would effectively impose the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) by legislative fiat, rather than by law.

You may recall that the "Son of TABOR" bill last year HB 2707 was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer as being too restrictive. Hence, the back-door attempt by legislative fiat. House GOP looks to rule change for spending limit -Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required):

The rule requires approval by a majority of the 60-member body – 40 of whom are Republicans – to be adopted.

Under the proposed rule, any future budget that exceeds the baseline would be deemed out of order, and lawmakers would be required to vote on whether they wanted to suspend the rule in order to approve the budget.

The change would be more flexible than a statutory or constitutional one, something Olson said remedies Brewer’s complain that last year’s bill tied future Legislatures’ hands. The purpose, he said, is to force a discussion about spending every time the Legislature considers a budget.

“It would require that debate and vote, and members would have to make the case as to why they were growing the budget,” he said.

House Speaker Andy Tobin called the rule “a good first step” in imposing a spending limit.

But when the rule came up during the House Republican caucus meeting on Tuesday, some of his colleagues had concerns.

Although Olson suggested that the flexibility was an advantage, Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, called the rule “a toothless tiger” and said that it would be “embarrassing” if a lawmaker tried to tell his constituents that he had put this measure in place to control excessive spending, only to see the rule bypassed by a procedural vote.

“This is something I would expect out of Congress, not the state of Arizona. Why don’t we just do our job? I think this is beneath us,” he said.

Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, said that she was uncomfortable about the precedent of setting policy rather than procedure in the rules.

“We set the stage for some unanticipated consequences that I’m very uncomfortable with,” she said Tuesday.

The rule change was scheduled for a floor vote last week but was called off after several lawmakers, including some Republicans, voiced their concerns.

Minority Leader Chad Campbell blasted Republicans, saying that trying to set policy in the rules is “not proper” and accusing Republicans of trying to dodge public comment.

Rep. Reuben Gallego, D-Phoenix, criticized the proposal as a back-door way of getting their policy in place.

“They couldn’t get it on the ballot, it was stopped – it was vetoed – last year, now they want to change the rules,” he said.

The Arizona Republic today in an editorial opinion is four-square against this Tea-Publican tyranny. Don't force Arizona into fiscal shackles:

Some House Republicans want to put their chamber in budget handcuffs. They want to impose a rigid financial formula that locks Arizona into the depths of recession-shrunk spending.

And they plan to do it by ignoring the legislative process. This radical change, with such destructive long-term impact on Arizona, is being proposed as a House rule.

No public hearings, no analysis, no getting approval from the Senate and governor. It would be a unilateral change that would block the state from any other course of action.

The rule, proposed by Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, would prohibit the House of Representatives from approving (or even bringing to a final vote) a budget that's higher than the one from the previous year, with adjustments for inflation and population growth.

It gets uglier: The base point is the past year's spending or revenues, whichever is lower. So if the state had a sudden collapse of revenues — as just happened — Arizona would never be able to climb out of the hole, even as revenues came surging back.

This wrongheaded system is known as TABOR, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. Many states have flirted with it, but only Colorado adopted it. When the state hit a financial skid, TABOR had to be suspended because it led to such disastrous consequences.

Gov. Jan Brewer, a committed fiscal hawk, cited Colorado's experience when she vetoed a TABOR bill last year as too restrictive.

House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, has said he's willing to bring the TABOR rule to a vote. He would serve the state by setting it aside.

The proposed House rule would start by pinning Arizona to an $8.5 billion budget. That's not a sustainable plan for the future. It requires the state to continue a string of desperate emergency strategies, which include ignoring capital needs, shortchanging education and shifting costs to local government.

* * *

The state would be worse than frozen in time, because not everything moves in lock-step with general population growth. From 2000 to 2010, the overall population increased by 25 percent. But we had 30 percent more prison inmates, 59 percent more kids in foster care and 45 percent more students in community college.

As the Republic concludes: "No one knows what challenges lie ahead. Legislators need more flexibility, not less. The House should skip the handcuffs."