That legislative minority veto sword cuts both ways.
It takes 75 out of 100 votes to pass a state budget in the House. It also takes 27 of 35 votes in the Senate. Therefore, lawmakers outnumbered almost three to one can hang up the state's budget. Almost that many try every year to derail the Arkansas Works health care plan. This week, another foot wore that shoe.
A different set of lawmakers used the minority veto to block the use of tax-exempt savings accounts to pay for private school tuition. It worked last Thursday, at least temporarily.
House Bill 1122's main purpose was to fund the state treasurer's office. What hung this regular appropriation bill up, though, was a rider that would have allowed people to put money into what has been college savings accounts. That rider will allow those accounts to be used to pay for things like tuition at private and religious schools from kindergarten on up. That's been a goal of some conservatives for years.
Last Thursday, House members stripped the offending language from the appropriation bill and it sailed through both House and Senate. There is talk the proposal will be revived for a special session the governer is expected to call later.
I argued very late in the multi-year, ongoing health care debate that the principle of majority rule ought to count for something, however strongly the minority felt. That became particularly evident during the 2016 election year. There was a big push in the GOP primary to win a couple of more seats to impose a legislative veto on health care. The governor himself intervened in those primaries to save the Arkansas Works program. I could make the argument that majority rule ought to be respected in the education account case, too. There are, however, some other principles at work to consider.
An argument can be made -- and has been, exhaustively -- that the health care plan was passed without thinking the cost all the way through. I would argue the cost issue was debated to death. The comparatively tiny education tax benefit, however, got tacked on to an appropriation bill without so much as a good look. Very similar measures in the past failed to get through on regular bills of their own despite considerable debate.
Whatever one thinks of the passage of the health care law, it got a full hearing and a clear result -- repeatedly. It is the most tiresomely, unendingly debated policy in our state government. The rider on education savings accounts did not get a fair hearing in a regular session. It was stuffed into the saddlebags of a necessary appropriation bill.
The saving account change is needed to be consistent with federal law, one argument goes. It's an interesting turn to see lawmakers who debated Obamacare like a saloon brawl in an old Western movie now deliver meek, strict and immediate adherence to the letter of federal law.
The savings account tax credit lets someone deduct up to $5,000 in savings from his or her taxable income, meaning $10,000 for a couple. The best guess of what this will take out of state tax receipts is $5.2 million a year if the parents who pay for private and religious schools now all start to use it. The dip in the state treasury could well be higher, though, since the rider also allows people to put money in these accounts to pay for things like tutoring.
Any parent with a dyslexic child, for instance, who pays tutors would be foolish not to use such an account. Tutoring is a mighty fine thing. Helping parents whose kids need tutoring is a mighty fine thing, too. It is such a fine thing, it ought to do well in a debate.
Fiscal sessions ought to be about fiscal matters. They are supposed to be brief check-ups and fine tuning of the state budget in between regular sessions. Big policy changes -- such as allowing a multi-million-dollar tax cut that directly benefits private and parochial schools -- is what regular sessions are for. Even some lawmakers supportive of the change in savings account policy balked on it catching a ride on a needed appropriation.
In fairness, the controversial provision was added in "special language," which is Legislature-speak for something that will remain in effect for just one year. The measure will have to be debated in the next regular session to renew it. As a practical matter, though, taking away a tax exemption after giving it is politically dangerous, if not impossible.
Any measure, however small, that is politically dangerous, if not impossible, to repeal should get a full and fair debate on its merits.
Commentary on 03/10/2018