Legislature discusses more spending cuts, or 'pausing' tax cuts

There was talk of steeper budget cuts in the Legislature Thursday, following senators’ rejection a tobacco tax increase.

On Wednesday, senators rejected a tobacco tax increase that could have brought in about $50 million a year to help balance the state budget. Thursday, recriminations for that vote were on full display. Sen. Myron Dorn, vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, said that committee would now have to consider even more budget cuts.

Dorn gave as an example furloughing state employees.

“About 25 years ago, they took 40 hours of pay from every state employee. I'm going to ask for a vote in Appropriations that takes 20 hours in the next year pay from every state employee. They did that because they had to balance the budget then," Dorn said.

Sen. Danielle Conrad took exception.

“Sen. Dorn, how many state employees that now you have in their crosshairs voted to wreck the budget, voted to move from a record surplus to a structural budget deficit due to unsustainable, inequitable tax cuts? Why are those hard-working public employees responsible for bearing the burden of your fiscal recklessness?” Conrad asked.

Dorn later tried to clarify.

“I got accused of 'I wanted to take money away from state employees.' That's not it. When I brought this list for discussion, it was these are things that I think, or I am proposing to bring up in Appropriations. I'm open to any other ideas. One of them was the state employees, and I'm going to take money away from the state employees. No, I'm not. This body will make that decision,” Dorn said.

The state currently faces a $125-million-plus budget shortfall.

Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh took issue with the idea that cuts are the only way to balance the budget.

“Cuts, yeah, cuts are an option. Another option is good governance and pausing the income tax cuts, which would fix it,” she said.

Cavanaugh was referring to pausing income tax cuts scheduled to take place next year, which could add $40-50 million to state revenues.

Sen. Tanya Storer welcomed the idea of further cuts.

“We have to take a hard look at, ‘How do we shrink back spending?’” she said.

“I believe it was in Sen. Ricketts’ second term (as governor) where there was an across-the-board cut. Everybody had to feel the pain. Probably nothing more fair than that,” Storer said.

But Sen. Rob Dover said that was a bad idea.

“Across-the-board cuts is not the fair way to do it. It may be the politically easy way to do it, but you can't tell me that each agency is as important as the next agency. You can't tell me that every program is just as important as any other program,” Dover said.

As the back-and-forth continued, Speaker John Arch said senators must work together to avoid what he described as the way Washington is working these days.

“My greatest concern is they're going to look like Washington, D.C. before we get done with this session, and Washington, D.C. looks like this: They watch the president as he does the State of the Union address, some stand up and applaud. Some don't. Whatever. But it becomes the President's agenda, not the Senate, not the Congress. It becomes the President's agenda,” Arch said.

Arch said he doesn’t want the Legislature to cede its budget authority to the governor.

“We -- this Legislature -- have the responsibility to present a budget. We have the responsibility to appropriate. We cannot abdicate that because we can't come to agreement. It is our responsibility -- co-equal branches of government. We are going to have some difficult discussions. We had them yesterday. They're going to continue, but we don't have forever,” he said.

The Legislature has 21 business days remaining in its session. Debate on the main budget bills starts Monday.

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