Here's alittle more information...
While Maine slept, millions were spent
By Stephen Bowen
Source:
Bangor Daily News
Tuesday, 03/22/2005
Edition: all, Section: a, Page 9
The sun was just coming up when we left the State House Saturday morning after pulling an all-nighter to vote the state's biennial budget out of the committee. We had sat in the Appropriations Committee room for seven straight hours, beginning at 11 p.m., spending millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars while taxpayers themselves slept soundly, unaware, mercifully, of what was going on.
This was not a task that should have taken all night. The budget document had been drafted in January, had been presented to us at length by top administration officials, and had been subject to review, in part, at least, by every legislative committee. Even at 350 pages, it was a document we knew well. What took us all night, though, was not the bill we had all worked on, but a series of amendments, probably 50 in all, that had been drafted by various parties in the days leading up to that evening's work session. They came to us in packets of eight or ten at a time all day Friday. New packets that came later in the day often contained amended versions of amendments we had been given earlier, so that those actually voted on deep into the night were sometimes identified as "version 2" or "version 3." They were literally being made up as we went along.
Were these technical amendments to change drafting errors? Were they budgetary modifications agreed to after days of bipartisan negotiation? They were neither of these. For the most part, the amendments offered into the early hours of last Saturday, and attached to the budget bill by majority vote, were an attempt by the Democrats, who offered nearly all of them, to subvert the committee public hearing process in order to jam through, in one night, a vast collection of policy changes, tax increases and interest-group payoffs.
Without any public notice or public hearings, without the knowledge of any committee of oversight and without even much explanation, the Democrats made both wholesale changes to the budget document itself and added entirely new elements to the bill that had no bearing on the budget at all.
Through amendment, the Democrats slipped in a major policy change to Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement, or BETR, for instance, the state's most widely known and successful business investment program. They did this without any prior warning to the business community, which had offered several hours of testimony in support of the BETR program before the Appropriations committee only weeks earlier.
Through amendment, and without any public hearing or notice, the Democrats invented a new fee and sticker requirement for all "canoes, sailboats and kayaks," with a fine of up to $500 for noncompliance. While they were at it, the Democrats also included language to develop a "non-consumptive user permit," whereby outdoor enthusiasts such a hikers and bird-watchers would pay a fee and obtain a state permit to engage in those activities.
In a blatant bit of payback to their loyal supporters, the Democrats attached to the budget a $40 million collective bargaining agreement with the state employees, which grants them a 6% raise and preserves for them the most generous benefit package in the state. This new contract was provided to us for our review less than four hours before it was voted on.
There's more. The Democrats went on the make substantial changes to the Medicaid estate recovery law, which will impact estate planning for nearly everyone. They cut a deal to funnel the state's multimillion-dollar Medicaid pharmacy business away from community pharmacies and to a mail-order monopoly operated by the Penobscot Indians. They created a new tax for satellite television services, raised countless fees, restored previously agreed-to cuts in social services and, despite the enormous fiscal challenges facing the state, approved the hiring of four new permanent staff members for the state Senate, at cost of over $230,000 a year.
And we still haven't gotten to the really bad part. As their last act of legislative merry-making for the night, the Democrats tossed out the governor's $250 lottery securitization plan and instead voted in a plan to borrow over $440 million, to be paid back over the next 20 years, and which includes a provision to use some of the borrowed money to make interest payments on the rest of the borrowed money. They intend to enact this borrowing plan to fill the hole in the budget that their overspending created and they do not seek to gain voter approval to do so. Remember that when you go to the polls this fall to vote on the governor's $200 million bond package.
In short, the Democrats, who have already figured out how to pass a budget without Republican support, despite decades of precedent against doing so, have now also figured out how to do deficit spending in a state who's constitution requires a balanced budget. They no longer need to raise as much money as they spend, they have discovered to their glee, they can just borrow it, like the federal government does, and they don't even have to ask voters if they approve.
The sun was indeed rising as we were leaving the State House that morning, but it rose on dark day for Maine. While taxpayers were snug in their beds, a door to unlimited state spending was opened by a Democratic majority for whom compromise, fiscal responsibility, and respect for the public process of legislating would appear to mean nothing.
Rep. Stephen Bowen represents Camden and Rockport in the Maine House
of Representatives and serves on the
Legislature's Appropriations Committee.
