(AP) — Two measures that would provide money to plug budget gaps failed to gain ground in separate House committees Monday as lawmakers haggle over whether they should make deep cuts to health services and public colleges next year.
Legislation to tap into the state’s “rainy day” fund was temporarily shelved amid opposition from the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. In the hearing room next door, the House Ways and Means Committee resoundingly rejected a proposal to delay a planned tax break for middle- and upper-income taxpayers.
Sponsors of both measures said they want to lessen the cuts proposed in the $27.9 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, cuts that would fall heavily on higher education and health care. Opponents argued the state’s money woes are only projected to worsen in later years and state government has to shrink its costs long-term.
“I think most of us realize that we’ve got to try to find a way to contain costs, but in doing that, the question at least in my mind is how do we contain costs to a point where it’s not punitive, to a point where we’re not putting people’s lives in jeopardy?” said Rep. Michael Jackson, D-Baton Rouge.
Jackson proposed delaying until September 2010 a scheduled tax break for middle- and upper-income taxpayers that would give individual filers a maximum annual tax cut of $500.
Lawmakers approved the tax break last year to take effect for the 2009 tax year and return Louisiana income tax brackets to where they were before voters approved the so-called “Stelly” plan. Jackson said lawmakers made that decision before the state had budget problems.
The Ways and Means Committee voted 12-3 against Jackson’s legislation, which was opposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and would give the state an additional $359 million to spend in the 2009-10 budget year.
Rep. Hunter Greene, chairman of the committee and an opponent of Jackson’s proposal, said when he ran for office, reversal of the Stelly income tax increase was the top issue with his constituents.
“At this point, it’s not something I’m willing to go back on,” said Greene, R-Baton Rouge.
Meanwhile, Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, the sponsor of legislation to tap into the state’s “rainy day” fund delayed a vote Monday on the idea in the Appropriations Committee, after it ran into opposition from the committee chairman, Rep. Jim Fannin, D-Jonesboro.
Peterson, D-New Orleans, said she plans to revisit the measure later this session. With the limitations on the fund, financial analysts said the state would net about $15 million to plug cuts in the upcoming fiscal year by using the rainy day fund, officially called the Budget Stabilization Fund.
Fannin said the rainy day fund should be preserved for when the state’s budget problems deteriorate further in later years, echoing the position Gov. Bobby Jindal has taken.
“It gets worse on down the road than it is this year. We do have to make some of the touch choices today. It’s not easy, but we have to make them knowing that there may be tougher ones down the road,” Fannin said.
Peterson said using the fund now would give colleges and health care providers, the two areas must vulnerable to budget cutting, more time to plan for steep cuts in later years.
“Use the fund this year and do prudent, responsible planning for a year, and then make some of the necessary hard decisions next year that are inevitable,” Peterson said.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]