Like Gov. John Bel Edwards, we’re not opposed, in principle, to the notion of paying down some of the state’s long-term debts with this year’s unanticipated gusher of new revenues.
The state House, led by a few of its most conservative members, came up with a rewrite of Edwards’ proposed budget and peddled it as providing a route to debt reduction and much-needed teacher pay raises, as well as preparing for potential tax cuts in a new administration coming in January. It was interesting — in the abstract.
The numbers, though, don’t add up.
We hope the state Senate, now pondering House Bill 1 and other legislation related to the budget, will take a more pragmatic approach to the challenges — and big opportunities — available thanks to today’s new revenues.
Edwards noted that his administration has paid down a lot of debt with its consistent run of surpluses, a marked and welcome change from the previous eight years of financial chaos under Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Jindal undermined his own often-constructive record in office by fracturing the budget, including by using one-time money to pay for operating costs that recur every year. It was ideological money laundering.
The conservatives pushing the House budget today aim to reorient financial responsibilities to local governments and school boards instead of the State Capitol. That gives the House-passed budget a superficial appeal.
The Senate should not fall for it.
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, as well as heads of retirement systems, critique the House proposal as flawed on multiple levels — including its fundamental sales pitch, that school boards would be freed of so much in annual retirement payments that teacher pay raises like the ones proposed by the governor would be feasible at the local level.
As Dardenne’s figures show, that’s not the case. Further, much of the one-time money that would be stripped from the Edwards budget would pay for construction projects to boost our economy. And some would pay the bills for emergency expenditures already made following the rash of cyberattacks against state colleges and local governments.
Another superficial appeal is that the new revenues under the House’s flawed plan would not exceed a cap long-ago set on growth in state spending. But the Louisiana Constitution wisely set up a two-thirds vote to suspend the cap in extraordinary circumstances, and this is surely that.
Most of this new money, in Edwards’ proposal, would be spent conservatively on one-time purchases, although some would fund the badly needed teacher pay raise.
Instead of clinging to the formula with a penny-wise, pound-foolish rigidity, the Senate and House should come together to suspend the growth cap and focus on putting the unusual rise in revenues to the most advantageous use.
This budget debate in the mid-point of the legislative session shows that the Republican Legislature’s much-vaunted “independence” from the Democratic Gov. Edwards has not yet been matched by a deep enough level of understanding of the budget, nor insight into the needs of Louisiana.
That larger vision of the state’s needs was met, perhaps imperfectly but with a coherent plan, in Edwards’ original proposal. The Senate is likely to have its own ideas, but the most urgent need now is to avoid a budget impasse, which is possible if House conservatives try to block a two-thirds vote on the cap’s suspension.
That kind of brinksmanship won’t look good for lawmakers seeking reelection, nor should it.
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