Despite what they said, it’s not too
hard to figure out why the state Senate Republicans blocked two
construction bond bills proposed by Democrats, one for education
and the other for roads and bridges. The idea is to starve the governor and the
Democrats of cash for projects that they could use to promote their
reelections this fall. No more, no less. Everything else
they’ve said or what you may have read in the papers has
pretty much been a diversion from that core issue. For instance, Republicans in both chambers
have complained for months that the governor doesn’t have a
“revenue source” for his proposed bond plans, and they
repeated that claim when the Senate Democrats moved a much larger
school-construction plan and a road plan of their own. The media have repeated these Republican
claims without comment every time they’ve been issued. But
these are general-obligation bonds, which means that they are
backed by the full faith and credit of the state, so the money
comes right out of the general-revenue fund — no matter what
condition the state’s budget is in. Essentially, the
Republicans want the Democrats to increase taxes to pay for any new
bond plan, but they don’t come all the way out and say that
and they know full well that they would loudly rail against a tax
hike even if the Democrats were foolish enough to back one. On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats
knew that the Republicans wanted to “starve the beast,”
so they designed their legislation and the debate for maximum
political impact. The Democrats spent almost the entire day on
the bond issue — even though everyone knew it was a doomed
effort. From an hours-long committee meeting to an excruciatingly
lengthy floor debate, the Senate Democrats made sure that the
Statehouse media could not ignore the issue. The two bills were drafted without any
Republican input whatsoever, even though they both needed a
three-fifths majority to pass, which guaranteed a negative reaction
from the GOP. Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson said during the
debate that the governor at first agreed to meet with him Thursday
to discuss the bond bills, then at the last minute postponed the
meeting until Friday — a day after the vote was to be held.
The governor’s office claims that the guv didn’t know
about the Senate Democrats’ plans in advance, but he
certainly did know what was going on when he canceled the meeting
with Watson that afternoon. Knowing the bills were destined for the dustbin, the Senate Democrats did all they could
to make as much political hay as possible, accusing Republicans of not
caring for schoolchildren, hating the governor, and cheering President
George W. Bush’s massive spending in Iraq. Neither side told the truth before, during,
or after the debate, so the coverage you saw in the media was
mostly generic “he said, she said” stuff that made it
impossible to know what was really going on. In reality, it was a
dog-and-pony show designed merely for the consumption of anyone who
might glance at the headline or read the story. This has happened many times before. In fact,
the governor himself participated in one of these charades back in
the mid-’90s, when he was a House Democrat and the
Republicans controlled both chambers and the Executive Mansion. The
Republicans tried to push through a construction bill, and the
Democrats, who had been locked out of every major decision that
year, took their revenge by voting against it. The bill died. Back then, the Democrats complained that the
state couldn’t afford the new borrowing (even though that
proposal was much smaller than both the current governor’s
plan and the Senate Democrats’ much larger spending effort),
just as the Republicans did this time around. They also complained
about a lack of a revenue source, but, like the Republicans this
year, they wouldn’t propose any new taxes to cover the
increased borrowing costs, and the bill failed. The problem during the mid-’90s was
that the Republicans threw bipartisanship out the window and then
suffered the consequences whenever they needed a Democratic vote.
The same exact thing is happening now. The arrogance of the
majority and the intransigence of the minority have combined to
stop a much-needed road- and school-construction bill from passing.
It’s a shame, but it’s what
passes for governance in Springfield.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2006.
