This afternoon, recognizing that he will not be able to get Republican Ken Simpler’s Budget Sequester Amendment (HB460) passed through the General Assembly, Governor John Carney will hold a news conference to declare that he intends to carry the Republican’s water just a little more. He will supposedly sign an Executive Order implementing some of the recommendations of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council advisory committee.
First, I am not sure how the now Republican Governor can do that by Executive Order. All tax and spending decisions are made, constitutionally, by the General Assembly. So if the Order says something like all surpluses in the future will be sequestered by order of the Governor and programs and services will be cut by order of the Governor, then his ass will be sued for violation of the Separation of Powers, and the General Assembly should consider his impeachment and removal. It will save us time waiting for his defeat in the 2020 Democratic primary.
The story of how the Governor’s Amendment came to a defeat in the House.
What this budget smoothing measure does:
**Avoid the fact that Delaware still has a revenue problem — across the board
**Gets the Governor and the GA out of making difficult choices when revenue is bad or if the Feds stop funding something difficult.
**Gives the GOP veto power over emergency spending (dipping into the Smoothing Fund)
I have made this point elsewhere, but a business that has experienced the kind of volatility that Delaware has had would take the opportunity to invest part of a surplus in shoring up its weaknesses. They would not put money in the bank and artificially restrict their budgets. California and Minnesota are your models here, Governor. Raise taxes, invest in the state and watch the BOOM.
It doesn’t work. Government has bad spending habits, they spend too much.
The tax system is broken, too many loop holes.
The government tried to do this with “green” companies and it failed!
People don’t want government in their pocket. They’ll put it under the mattress and NOT spend!
They tried to pass the Marijuana bill, it didn’t go through. They wanted something like 28 government positions, to handle it. WHY, for the government to get bigger?
It would also hurt the small businesses, which most are S-corps. Because, it’s going to hit them personally!
Sorry, government can’t create jobs, Fisker, Bloom, solar panels?
For 2011, only 54% of Americans, paid income taxes!
“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”- Mark Twain
You need to get smarter or get gone. I am not kidding.
Thank you.
Kevin Ohlandt reports on FB that the Governor’s press conference is not open to the public.