House To Try To Get Barbour To Use One Time Funds, Again
Last week, the House passed a bill that would give Haley Barbour some additional budget cutting authority, but would also force him to use one-time funds such as the rainy day fund and the federal stimulus.
Barbour adamantly opposed the bill, and acted swiftly to make across the board cuts to all state agencies.
The back and forth continued on Monday as the House Appropriations Committee passed a bill to take $50 million out of the rainy day fund and another $50 million out of the tobacco trust fund. The bill will be taken up by the full House today, and I imagine it will pass by a similar vote as HB 392 last week.
There is no appetite for this type of bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee so I would call this merely an attempt to say we oppose the cuts. In the end, I imagine Barbour’s cuts will stay. And next year we will probably see something very similar.
It will be interesting to see what happens in an election year. Democrats think they have the upper hand and are doing their best to make sure voters see it that way.
