HOW WE SEE IT: What Democrats And Burris Have In Common

— Find the practical difference between these two statements: “We can afford this increase in health spending because cost savings will pay for it.”

“We can afford this cut in tax revenues because economic growth will pay for it.”

The answer is: None, to all practical purposes. Both are based on assumptions. Assumptions, of course, may not come true, especially in this economy. Assumptions like these have put this nation and almost all of its states in the sorry shape they’re in.

Conservatives - by definition - don’t makeassumptions. They don’t make leaps of faith on budget matters.

House Minority Leader John Burris of Harrison says the state’s budget will painlessly absorb a $44 million capitalgains tax cut without even looking for cost savings.

That’s simply not credible. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. That’s as true in budgeting as it is in physics.

Don’t tell us the still-weak economy can’t dip back into recession.

Bills like this are where the bailouts of the future come from. Cutting taxes without even considering offsets would risk a major tax increase later to repair the damage.

The sponsor of House Bill 1002 is Rep. Ed Garner, R-Maumelle. He calls the Department of Finance and Administration’s $44 million estimate an inflated “fantasy.”

This is the same Rep. Garner who wanted to finance a statewide trauma care system with a patchwork collection of fees in the last session. That was one of the most unrealistic funding bills we’ve ever seen. He touted that as an alternative to increasing the tobacco tax. His House peers passed the tobacco tax instead - by a three-to-one margin.

That tobacco tax bill put the money into general revenue. The money wasn’t earmarked. Therefore, when state revenue didn’t match expectations, additional health spending wasn’t allowed. The offset was built-in.

That tobacco tax saved the state budget’s bacon when the economy tanked, to state things plainly.

Now Garner’s getting a second chance to court fiscal disaster with the support of a gullible Republican Party leadership.

No, Reps. Burris and Garner, we don’t believe we can have our cake and eat it too. This state is one of the few that isn’t facing wrenching budget choices this year.

It’s in that rare, safe condition because of conservative budgeting. Gov. Mike Beebe gets too much credit for that. The Legislature approves the budget. The Legislature built up a legacy of conservative budgeting long before this governor was elected.

Conservatives honor tradition, especially when that tradition’s proved itself to be profoundly wise.

When the governor asked what he’d cut to pay for this tax break, Burris huffed and puffed: “Anybody that says it’s going to create cuts should be ashamed of themselves. It’s not true.”

Since when is the top Republican in the state House allergic to cutting government? Is he so uniformed about the state budget, he can’t find $44 million - or some significant portion of it - when the state collected $4.4 billion in general revenue last fiscal year?

We expected the new, larger Republican minority in the Legislature to go to Little Rock with a laundry list of cuts to make and savings to enact. Instead we get this broad-brush proposal for a $44 million cut without a single offset.

This bill’s built on the kind of baseless assumptions that has this whole country and almost ever state in it going down the debt drain. We urge the state Senate to reject it.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/21/2011

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