Not One For The Record Books

The 2009 Regular Session of the Legislature is approaching its conclusion, and it probably will not generate fond memories in the minds of most individuals. Gertrude Stein once described Oakland, California by saying: "There is no 'there' there." It is difficult at this juncture to capture the "there" in this convocation of the Legislature.

Granted, the budget shortfall usurped almost every other potential topic during the session. Trying to plug a billion-dollar-plus hole in the operating budget was acts one, two, and three of the three-act play that was this legislative session. And, as with most acting performances, there was a lot of posturing and over-playing of roles.

The current battle of the budget centers around the House that wants to make a significant amount of cuts now (believing that there is more fiscal pain coming in the next two budgets), and the Senate that feels the amount of cuts proposed by the House is too severe. The Senate wants to take a significant amount of money from the Rainy Day Fund and to increase tax revenues to supplement the budget. Many members of the House have concerns about tapping the Rainy Day Fund at this juncture and are dead set against raising taxes. The two chambers are on a collision course with only a week left in the session.

Fiscal disputes such as the current one are somewhat rare. Why? Because the Legislature usually follows the governor's lead on budget matters. Governor Jindal has been a player but not necessarily a dominant one thus far in the budget debate. Yes, he said he would not allow any taxes to become law, but that didn't stop the Senate from (illegally) trying to advance one. Perhaps that was just posturing on the Senate's part so they could appear to be funding unfunded elements of the budget and jamming the House with the issue.

But the House wasn't in the mood for a jam. In an interesting move, the House concurred with the Senate amendments to the budget instead of sending the legislation to a conference committee. The Senate then loudly protested that the House had the audacity to adopt the amended version of the budget that the Senate had sent them. (Talk about audacity!) Now the Senate is amending House bills to send more revenue raising measures back to them in order to put pressure on the House to lessen the amount of cuts in the budget that is now sitting on the governor's desk.

The clock is ticking and the outcome of the battle over the budget is still up in the air. One of two scenarios is going to prevail in some fashion: Either the House's view (serious budget cutting needs to begin now because the news only gets worse in subsequent budgets) or the Senate's plan (raise more money now and hope for better times going forward) will become dominant. The outcome could be resolved fairly quickly if Governor Jindal sold the public on exactly what he thinks the solution to the problem should be-and why. He has stated in the past that he is not for raising taxes or tapping the Rainy Day Fund (except for perhaps $50 million) to address the budget shortfall. If that is where he still is in the deliberations, a forceful statement by him would likely conclude the issue. If he has changed his mind, it is time to let the world know.