State GOP shortens budget hearings. - A very different GOP approach. Fewer if any probing questions of state department heads.
With a two-day marathon of budget hearings topping the marquee, Georgia lawmakers avoided doing much heavy lifting at the Capitol last week.
The days after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday traditionally have been the time for each state agency and department to defend spending needs for the coming year before a joint House-Senate budget committee.
The newly-in-power Republican majority shook up the process a little this year by shortening the time for budget talks from the traditional four-day period to two days.
Rep. Mickey Channell, D-Greensboro, the former vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee . . . noted that much more questioning and research would take place among the various appropriations subcommittees that will tackle different aspects of the budget, such as health care, education, public safety and economic development.
(Brian Basinger, Morris News Service, 01-21-05.)
[In days gone by] lawmakers put the legislative session on hold and, budget books in hand, got a chance to ask probing questions of state department heads.
But that was when Democrats ran the show. Now, for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans are in charge of both legislative chambers and GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue is in the executive mansion. The Republican approach to budget hearings and budget writing seems much different.
Last week, Republicans held just two days of budget hearings, compared to the two weeks Democrats usually dedicated to the task. Questions from lawmakers this year were deferential and department heads, for the most part, steered clear of controversy, leaving the impression they were happy with the governor's spending recommendations and didn't need more money.
"It's clear to us that this administration and the House and the Senate don't want people to know what's in this budget," said Rep. DuBose Porter of Dublin . . . .
Porter said that by shortening the budget hearings and setting a faster timetable for the budget's approval in the Legislature, Republicans seem determined to push the bill through before anyone has time to understand it.
"It appears this will be a rubber-stamp budget," he said.
Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, the first Republican to lead the House Appropriations Committee since 1870, . . . said "Our goal is to do this quickly because we don't want to be, like in years past, here in mid-April trying to figure out a budget. We're going to try to do it quickly. We're going to try to do it right. Where we think changes need to be made, we're going to make them. This is not going to be a rubber stamp."
Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, who led the Senate Appropriations Committee when Democrats held the majority . . . said it seemed to him in last week's hearings that Republicans shied away from probing questions because they lacked the knowledge to ask them.
"It's nobody's fault, but they have no depth of knowledge or the budget or the budget process because they don't have enough experience or knowledge to apply a critical analysis," he said.
Regardless of which party holds power, Hooks argued, the Legislature must remain independent of the governor in budget matters.
"The Legislature has always been a guardian for the state budget. The House and Senate may start with different ideas but eventually we come together in the best interests of the state," he said.
Porter, the House Democratic leader, said he fears that will be a tall order this year.
"This is probably the least information the Legislature, and therefore the public, has ever received on any budget I've seen in 20 years," he said. "I don't think there's any way to read this budget and see what the priorities really are because of the lack of detail."
(Dick Pettys, AP, 01-22-05.)
_______________
Dick Pettys also reminded us of that comment made some nine years ago by Georgia's new prisons commissioner Wayne Garner during legislative budget hearings that a third of the state's prison inmates "ain't fit to kill."
The days after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday traditionally have been the time for each state agency and department to defend spending needs for the coming year before a joint House-Senate budget committee.
The newly-in-power Republican majority shook up the process a little this year by shortening the time for budget talks from the traditional four-day period to two days.
Rep. Mickey Channell, D-Greensboro, the former vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee . . . noted that much more questioning and research would take place among the various appropriations subcommittees that will tackle different aspects of the budget, such as health care, education, public safety and economic development.
(Brian Basinger, Morris News Service, 01-21-05.)
[In days gone by] lawmakers put the legislative session on hold and, budget books in hand, got a chance to ask probing questions of state department heads.
But that was when Democrats ran the show. Now, for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans are in charge of both legislative chambers and GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue is in the executive mansion. The Republican approach to budget hearings and budget writing seems much different.
Last week, Republicans held just two days of budget hearings, compared to the two weeks Democrats usually dedicated to the task. Questions from lawmakers this year were deferential and department heads, for the most part, steered clear of controversy, leaving the impression they were happy with the governor's spending recommendations and didn't need more money.
"It's clear to us that this administration and the House and the Senate don't want people to know what's in this budget," said Rep. DuBose Porter of Dublin . . . .
Porter said that by shortening the budget hearings and setting a faster timetable for the budget's approval in the Legislature, Republicans seem determined to push the bill through before anyone has time to understand it.
"It appears this will be a rubber-stamp budget," he said.
Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, the first Republican to lead the House Appropriations Committee since 1870, . . . said "Our goal is to do this quickly because we don't want to be, like in years past, here in mid-April trying to figure out a budget. We're going to try to do it quickly. We're going to try to do it right. Where we think changes need to be made, we're going to make them. This is not going to be a rubber stamp."
Sen. George Hooks, D-Americus, who led the Senate Appropriations Committee when Democrats held the majority . . . said it seemed to him in last week's hearings that Republicans shied away from probing questions because they lacked the knowledge to ask them.
"It's nobody's fault, but they have no depth of knowledge or the budget or the budget process because they don't have enough experience or knowledge to apply a critical analysis," he said.
Regardless of which party holds power, Hooks argued, the Legislature must remain independent of the governor in budget matters.
"The Legislature has always been a guardian for the state budget. The House and Senate may start with different ideas but eventually we come together in the best interests of the state," he said.
Porter, the House Democratic leader, said he fears that will be a tall order this year.
"This is probably the least information the Legislature, and therefore the public, has ever received on any budget I've seen in 20 years," he said. "I don't think there's any way to read this budget and see what the priorities really are because of the lack of detail."
(Dick Pettys, AP, 01-22-05.)
_______________
Dick Pettys also reminded us of that comment made some nine years ago by Georgia's new prisons commissioner Wayne Garner during legislative budget hearings that a third of the state's prison inmates "ain't fit to kill."
posted by Sid Cottingham | 3:23 PM
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