I Love Majority Vote Budgets (With a Two Third Vote for Taxes and Fees)
Republicans are nothing, if not responsible. In the late ’90’s, I became an advocate for majority vote budgets because of that character trait in Republicans. My Republican colleagues in the Legislature would always say they had to do the responsible thing in the lean budget years, and vote for tax increases, because “we had to have a budget,” and that budget needed a two thirds vote. Of course, in the budget’s salad days, Republicans loved the two thirds vote because it meant they got some of the pork. We never restrained spending in the good years with the two thirds vote because of the lure of pork, and we never stopped taxes in the bad years because of the need to be “responsible.” It was the worst of both worlds.
So I voted for a majority vote budget. Boy, was that ever controversial. Everybody said I was selling out Republicans. I was being anti-Republican. How could I do such a thing? I of course had no real dog in that hunt, so rather than take the heat, I just stayed quiet. No one was pushing on the matter, I had no friends that wanted it. I just thought it was good policy, because Republicans… Read More