Budget Deal
House and Senate Republican leadership teams (7 from each body), and a lot of staff, typically meet 2 or 3 times a week during the session. We meet in the "Star Wars Room" -- a high-tech room with two long tables triangling away from two large video screens on which we project budget line items and dollar amounts. With rare (but highly-memorable) exceptions, the meetings are cordial -- everyone realizing that, however important each decision is, there will be hundreds of other decisions that must be made just a few moments or days later; we cannot afford to significantly damage personal relationships between the two leadership teams. (In a joint leadership meeting, there will rarely be significant disagreement within each team (just tongue biting), since each team meets separately to form its positions).
Thursday morning, we asked staff to let us meet by ourselves, and we moved to the House majority conference room -- a windowless room with one table and a whiteboard. It was the House's turn to conduct, and Majority Leader Jeff Alexander led the discussion. Euphemistically, you might say each team was quite willing to provide the other with some constructive criticism, but Rep. Alexander skillfully worked to keep the discussion productive.
It became clear that each side was every bit as entrenched as it had been saying -- the House was not forming a budget without significant tax relief for individuals and without reducing the food tax. The Senate, meanwhile, was not forming a budget with $166 million taken out of the general fund by removing the food tax. Through the course of several meetings that day between members of leadership, our caucuses and with the Governor, we came to the deal which is being reported -- tax cuts of $70 million from individual income tax, $70 million from food tax (reducing the rate on food about 2%), and $20 million from business inputs.
Much work remains. How will we provide the individual income tax relief -- flat tax or simple rate reduction? Which specific business taxes will we cut? And, how will we resolve all of the "hot spots" that remain in the House and Senate's spending priorities? But, we can figure out those kinds of details.
The House majority caucus was the first to grudgingly accept the proposal. In their ever-gracious way, once it was obvious that the proposal had the support of most caucus members (after a few hours of rolling debate and a few modifications), most other caucus members expressed gratitude for the efforts and shared a willingness to support the position. Later, President Valentine stopped by my office to inform me that the Senate had accepted the proposal. Together, we went to inform Speaker Curtis. I will cherish the memory of their embrace and expressions of gratitude for a hard-fought battle and successful resolution.
Thursday morning, we asked staff to let us meet by ourselves, and we moved to the House majority conference room -- a windowless room with one table and a whiteboard. It was the House's turn to conduct, and Majority Leader Jeff Alexander led the discussion. Euphemistically, you might say each team was quite willing to provide the other with some constructive criticism, but Rep. Alexander skillfully worked to keep the discussion productive.
It became clear that each side was every bit as entrenched as it had been saying -- the House was not forming a budget without significant tax relief for individuals and without reducing the food tax. The Senate, meanwhile, was not forming a budget with $166 million taken out of the general fund by removing the food tax. Through the course of several meetings that day between members of leadership, our caucuses and with the Governor, we came to the deal which is being reported -- tax cuts of $70 million from individual income tax, $70 million from food tax (reducing the rate on food about 2%), and $20 million from business inputs.
Much work remains. How will we provide the individual income tax relief -- flat tax or simple rate reduction? Which specific business taxes will we cut? And, how will we resolve all of the "hot spots" that remain in the House and Senate's spending priorities? But, we can figure out those kinds of details.
The House majority caucus was the first to grudgingly accept the proposal. In their ever-gracious way, once it was obvious that the proposal had the support of most caucus members (after a few hours of rolling debate and a few modifications), most other caucus members expressed gratitude for the efforts and shared a willingness to support the position. Later, President Valentine stopped by my office to inform me that the Senate had accepted the proposal. Together, we went to inform Speaker Curtis. I will cherish the memory of their embrace and expressions of gratitude for a hard-fought battle and successful resolution.
posted by steve u. at 2/25/2006
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11 Comments:
Thanks for the hard work. This is why voters send you folks to the legislature.
Congratulations to you and your colleagues. I hope it all works out, and I'm glad you were able to work out a deal, even thought it isn't everything the House wanted. The Senate has certainly been interesting this year. Kind of looks like the House brokered a deal with the Gov. and then went back to the Senate. Interesting approach, and probably rather unusual, I'd guess.
Hang in there!
It sounds like the deal is on the rocks. I guess we ought not to count our chickens before they're hatched. Here's to hoping the lawmakers get it all worked out before midnight tomorrow.
One of those democrat Salt Lakers but have to recognize that you are trying to bring some common sense back to governing. Also recognize your effectiveness as a politician.
In fact you share the same last name with a fictional politician. If you have time you should check out the BBC series House of Cards and its two sequels. Not saying you are this guys league but there is always room for improvement! just kidding, you'll understand if you watch them.
I applaud you for your service. I look forward to the day you take the hardest step and stand up against Utah State Senators who step over the line and embarrass the party and thinking Utahns.
I've tried to keep quiet, but I just can't hold it in any longer. I have to tell everyone that these issues are actually political issues. What follows is the story of how Mr. Stephen Urquhart can be so rich in the rhetoric of democracy and yet so poor in its implementation. He speaks like a true defender of the status quo -- a status quo, we should not forget, that enables him to exhibit cruelty to animals. Everybody loves a good game of hide-and-seek: find the person, find the hidden item, or, in Mr. Urquhart's case, find the hidden agenda. Although chimpanzees can be convinced to wear clothing, understand commands, and even ride bicycles (if well paid for their services in bananas), it would be virtually impossible to convince Mr. Urquhart that he drops the names of famous people whenever possible. That makes Mr. Urquhart sound smarter than he really is and obscures the fact that he is driving me nuts. I can't take it anymore! He is obviously trying to create a kind of psychic pain at the very root of the modern mind, and unless we act now, he'll unequivocally succeed.
Mr. Urquhart claims to be fighting for equality. What he's really fighting for, however, is equality in degradation, by which I mean that if I hear Mr. Urquhart's grunts say, "Recalcitrant jackanapes are easily housebroken" one more time, I'm going to throw up. We must prevent the production of a new crop of heinous blinkered-types. Those who claim otherwise do so only to justify their own goofy campaigns. Perhaps I'm really afraid of petty, malicious ratbags, but remember that I want to thank him for his disquisitions. They give me an excellent opportunity to illustrate just how annoying Mr. Urquhart can be. Somebody has to stand up and fight for our heritage, traditions, and values. That somebody can be you. In any case, Mr. Urquhart may unwittingly resolve a moral failure with an immoral solution. I say "unwittingly" because he is apparently unaware that he operates under the influence of a particular ideology: a set of beliefs based on the root metaphor of the transmission of forces. Until you understand this root metaphor you won't be able to grasp why Mr. Urquhart is an inspiration to warped clunks everywhere. They panegyrize his crusade to anesthetize the human spirit and, more importantly, they don't realize that there are three fairly obvious problems with Mr. Urquhart's ultimata, each of which needs to be addressed by any letter that attempts to fight to the end for our ideas and ideals. First, Mr. Urquhart has graduated from occasionally exempting himself from the few principles he has to betraying them altogether. Second, a common thread runs through most of Mr. Urquhart's holier-than-thou attitudes, a thread so cankered that it disgusts me nearly to the point of physical illness. And third, I admit I have a tendency to become a bit insensitive whenever I rebuke Mr. Urquhart for trying to use mass organization as a system of integration and control. While I am desirous of mending this tiny personality flaw, many people are convinced that Mr. Urquhart's hijinks are steeped in biggety clericalism. I can't comment on that, but I can say that he decries or dismisses capitalism, technology, industrialization, and systems of government borne of Enlightenment ideas about the dignity and freedom of human beings. These are the things that Mr. Urquhart fears, because they are wedded to individual initiative and responsibility.
I am aware that many people may object to the severity of my language. But is there no cause for severity? Naturally, I suspect that there is, because I draw strength and courage from knowing that most people comprehend the crusade to stop Mr. Urquhart and are supportive of my role in it. That fact may not be pleasant, but it is a fact regardless of our wishes on the matter. We will have to become much more vigilant to ensure that he doesn't create widespread hysteria. Mr. Urquhart would not hesitate to give rise to narrow-minded rubes if he felt he could benefit from doing so. What he doesn't realize is that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to detect the subtext of this letter. But just in case it's too subliminal for some, let me thrust it into your face right here: He keeps trying to cast ordinary consumption and investment decisions in the light of high religious purpose. And if we don't remain eternally vigilant, he will unquestionably succeed. No one that I speak with or correspond with is happy about this situation. Of course, I don't speak or correspond with squalid pinheads, Mr. Urquhart's proxies, or anyone else who fails to realize that when I say that the rectitude of imperialism has become a matter of theological conviction for Mr. Urquhart, this does not, I repeat, does not mean that profits come before people. This is a common fallacy held by the worst classes of vitriolic reavers there are. Let me conclude by saying that we who want to develop a rational-empirical base for dialogue about Mr. Stephen Urquhart's threats will not rest until we do.
Anonymous, lose the thesaurus and get some competent psychological counseling.
But, it's true. Recalcitrant jackanapes are easily housebroken.
Really? What's the secret? I can't get my recalcitrant jackanapes house-broken for the life of me. Nor could I follow that incoherent nonsense proffered by our new in-house English professor.
Well, I hope the answer to the question of how to offer tax relief on income tax is in a way that gives each and every tax payer relief. The Governor's plan is simply a tax increase. He uses Senator Stephenson's organiztion, the Utah Taxpayer's Association, to send out some unrealistic numbers of what a family of four spends on food tax. Then he uses those numbers in his tax calculator to try to convince us that though there'd be a tax increase on our income tax, we'd see enough of a cut in the food tax to make a difference. It's just not true.
I was in the town meeting (Feb 25th) where Sen. Stephenson and Rep. Dougall presented this plan as if they were a couple of salesmen. Their tactic of pitching the reduced 2% rate vs. the plan of reducing the rate by only 1% seemed to charm a lot of people. They had their graphs to show that only a "few blue dots" would see an increase of tax. The reality is that the few blue dots will see an increase. Actually, most Utah taxpayers will see an increase. I hope that the House and the Senate will see that we, the people, expect to see tax reform that is a true tax cut. We expect to see a return that is equitable.
To Anonymous: Not only do you need to put your thesaurus away, try checking your ego and sick attitude at the door while you're at it. I don't think I can recall hearing anyone quite so in love with the sound of one's own voice. On second thought I'm forgetting Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Bill Maher, Barbra Streisand and other "devout patriots". Get a life Anonymous - or try to fulfill your need to find someone to listen to your incoherent babble by just ranting to yourself in the shower. I don't know Mr. Urquhart very well, but after reading your dribble, I'm convinced that Mr. U. must be a good man. "One of the best testimonials to a man's character is revealed in the flaw of his critics."
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