News from Concord: Budget Battle Continues

Every two years, the Governor submits a budget plan, then the House generates a budget bill, which the Senate amends. The Senate Finance Committee passed its amended bill last week for consideration by the full Senate this Thursday, June 3, followed by reconciliation of the House and Senate versions in Committee of Conference. It both can pass the reconciled version, it moves to the governor.

Three forces control the budget; voters’ wishes are not one of them
The competing voting blocks on the budget are: Republican majority, Democratic minority and ultra-conservative Republican “Freedom Caucus”, plus the governor. The ultra-conservatives are in control in the House because, without them, Republicans lack a majority. 
        For this reason, the House budget contains the most extreme measures: a bill restricting government employees’ and contractors’ speech, banning any mention of implicit racial bias or other “divisive concepts”; a bill to curtail the governor’s control over emergency spending.
          The House also nixed the governor’s plan to combine the Community College and University systems, which would close college programs in many towns. It also added moneys for county nursing homes and education funding to help property taxpayers.
         The Senate tried to water down the ultra-conservatives’ measures with looser language and less control over the governor. Despite increasing revenue estimates above the House’s the Senate wants to spend less overall.
           Meanwhile, Democrats point out increased child poverty and abuse, worst energy conservation and prices in New England, destruction of the state’s exceptional school system and tax cuts for the affluent. Their outcry has had no impact on the discussion, even in the case of educational vouchers, where over 3,240 signed in against the bill at the Senate hearing, with only 516 in favor.
            The governor, of course, will have the final say. If the House and Senate reach agreement, but he vetoes it, legislative Republicans will have no recourse, unless Democrats were to approve an override bill. Given that the Democrats will never sign a voucher bill and the Republicans will never exclude it, the odds of a veto override appear close to zero.