Blogging for a Progressive South
If there was
ever a time that a limit on state spending shouldn't apply, one could say
that recovering from the biggest "natural disaster" in history would be it.
But the Louisiana 2006 special legislative session is stuck in a stalemate,
as Gov. Katherine Blanco has failed to get a 2/3 House vote needed to lift a
constitutionally-enshrined cap on spending that Louisiana voters enacted in
1998 as part of a "Taxpayer
Bill of Rights" (pdf), or TABOR -- a darling
cause of right-wing think tanks in the 1990s.
Here in New Orleans,
the Times-Picayune reports on the damage that TABOR (and those unwilling
to suspend it) has dealt to Blanco's 10-day special session:
The House of Representatives struck a crippling blow Wednesday to Gov.
Kathleen Blanco's bid for public employee pay raises, road construction
dollars and other new spending, refusing for the third straight day to raise
a constitutional cap on state spending.
The mostly party-line
vote left the governor's spending agenda in tatters and sent administration
officials scrambling to find silver linings in the 10-day special lawmaking
session Blanco convened to distribute a $2.4 billion tax windfall.
Blanco and Democrats point out that many of the spending items that would push the budget over the limit are sorely needed and wildly popular: "I wonder how much time do we need to decide that we need to spend some money on highways and roads?" said Rep. John Alario, who handled the governor's money bills.
But a block
of mostly Republicans are flexing their muscle and so far have refused to
compromise -- and with the session slated to end Sunday, it might be
unsalvageable.
Louisiana's experience should be a warning to other states that enact rigid
rules in the name of fiscal restraint, but which end up hamstringing their
ability to respond to urgent needs.
Policies like TABOR sound good at election time. But people here in
Louisiana are desperate for jobs, homes, and schools, and the state has
become "Exhibit A" in showing why inflexible rules can cause widespread
suffering -- not to mention strangle long-term economic growth.
The Progressive States Network has
an excellent run-down on the powerful interests that have pushed TABOR
laws, and its disastrous record in Colorado. Unfortunately, we may have to
add Louisiana to the list of TABOR casualties.