House Votes to Restore Cuts: Now What?
The state House voted to restore $100 million in cuts made by Haley Barbour last week by using rainy day funds and federal stimulus funds. The final vote was 73-47. Very similar to last weeks vote in the House on a similar bill.
During the intense debate, the House defeated an amendment by Rep. Philip Gunn (R-Clinton), which would use $50 million from the tobacco trust fund only to help ease the cuts. After a debate in which Democrats used terms such as “gobbledegook” and “baloney” to describe the bill, the final vote was 49 in favor, 72 against.
Shortly after the vote, Haley Barbour released a statement saying the GOP alternative was a “sensible compromise” as he continued to oppose the Democrats proposal. A couple weeks ago, Democrats made the argument that they were willing to compromise and Barbour was not. It looks like Republicans can now say the same thing about Democrats.
Multiple Republicans made the point that the House was wasting their time on a bill that will never get an OK from the governor, but rather this was a show for the education officials who packed the galleries. It’s hard to argue otherwise. The House has now passed several bills to show they oppose the cuts, with none of them seeing the light of day after they leave McCoy’s chamber. I don’t think they could have thought this would be different.
Make no mistake; this will be defeated in the Senate. I suppose Democrats may hear Barbour’s support for the GOP alternative to restoring cuts and agree to do things again, but I doubt it.
They wanted two things: To show that they are opposed to any education cuts and to let Barbour unilaterally make the additional needed cuts. Speaker McCoy, himself, said the blood is on Barbour’s/ Republicans hands. We will be discussing which side is the political winner as we see two more budget fights before the 2011 elections.
What I have seen from the House is a body who despises the governor. I suppose it is because he wins most of the arguments in the end. Supporters of the Gunn amendment were referred to as “Barbour’s cronies” while multiple Democrats said Barbour’s numbers were wrong. Rep. Sherra Lane (D-Waynesboro) said she trusted budget numbered offered by Rep. Cecil Brown (D-Jackson) because he is a CPA and former state fiscal officer.
At the end of the day, nothing is really different than it was this morning or a week ago. The cuts will stand and Democrats think they have the high road in the debate.
