Unless the state House can find some more money, the Senate’s (unpopular with voters) sales tax proposal may carry the day as the two chambers try to reconcile their budgets in the next 24 hours and, more likely, in a special session.
The Senate plan is more credible. First of all, the House passed a $682 million revenue package but initially planned on $757 million in new revenue. That’s over $70 million in the negative. (The Senate—much more on track—passed an $890 million revenue package and had been shooting for a little over $900 million in new revenues.)
Second of all, the House is relying on $500 million in federal dollars which, in part, helps cover popular things like the Basic Health Plan. If that money doesn’t come through—about $71 million is dependent on President Obama’s health care reform bill—the House budget will be even further in the red. (In a piece of good news the U.S. Senate passed its jobs bill this afternoon which does include up to $500 million in federal Medicaid money that legislators were counting on. But the federal health care reform money, obviously, is still in limbo.)
So, as the legislature continues to work out a budget, the onus is on the House,
which has already listened to its liberal constituents and added more expenditures—reinstating the $20 million janitorial services tax exemption, adding back environmental services, funding General Assistance for the Unemployable—to find alternative revenue sources.
Where to look? One thing that’s notably absent in both the Senate and House revenue proposals is the $90 million soda pop tax idea, originally in the governor’s budget for $96 million. Word is the soda industry did a full court press “quadrupling” its lobbying force according to one source.
