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| published Saturday, March 10, 2007 |
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When it comes to local control, forget about it. When it comes to
business tax breaks, "Katie bar the door!" And tax relief for low and
moderate income families? Now that’s social engineering. On Wednesday,
the House Revenue and Taxation Committee rejected an effort led by Ada
and Canyon County elected officials and the business community that
would have allowed local residents to vote to tax themselves for public
transit if they could get a 2/3 majority on a general or primary
election day. Even that high bar was not enough for most of the
committee which defeated HB246 11 to 7. Legislators resorted to the
last refuge of scoundrels: questioning it to death. I have seen more
complicated bills go through with barely a question. No, this is about
tax philosophy and Representative Leon Smith, a Twin Falls Republican,
had it about right, “We only give lip service to local control.”
Every time I think that the Governor has the Legislature in a headlock, they flip him over and get the next takedown. But enough of that wrestling talk. Still there is a palpable power struggle going on that is keeping legislation bottled up in the House, in the Senate and at JFAC. It usually happens this time of the session: bills are taken hostage so that leadership in each house can cut deals between each other and with the Governor who also has the power of the veto. A new Governor and new House leadership seem bound and determined to test each others’ limits. Most of the struggle now seems to be over tax policy and the Governor’s needs-based scholarship program. Once those issues are resolved the session will go fast, though it may take a few body blows and a whack or two over the head with a folding chair to finish by the 23rd.
on bio-fuels Wednesday but couldn’t quite pull it off. It was tied 4 to 4 when Chairman Brent Hill, who earlier in the session had agreed to hold the line on more tax exemptions, gave it the nod. It wasn’t a big tax break but it continued the process of giving away and narrowing the tax base little by little. On Thursday, the House committee passed a “clarification” of the exemption for pollution control equipment which will reduce state revenues by a little over a million bucks annually—courtesy of the mining and dairy industries. The bill passed the House on Friday morning.
it’s been working on since last session. HB245, after amendments on Thursday, exempts the first $50,000 of personal property from the personal property tax and then sets up a mechanism for eliminating the tax altogether by legislative action each year. The original bill would have done this automatically for 8 years. It is still the intent of the sponsors to take the nearly $100 million it will cost out of the revenue stream, shifting the cost of county services from business to individual taxpayers. Now it will be interesting to see what the Senate does, given that this does not give them as easy a target to reduce or replace by closing other tax breaks.
for us to get an affordable, targeted grocery tax credit passed through the Senate. Then things fell apart. When HB81 came up for amendment Thursday morning there were 4 amendments. Two of them would have replaced the bill with language that looked a lot like, but improved upon, the bill presented by the governor. The other main idea reduced the per person amount given in HB81 from $50 to $40. Senator Hill argued that HB81 was the better way to help the poor since it relies on personal charity. People who don’t feel they need the credit can choose to give it to a fund for energy assistance rather than being “coerced” into helping the poor, as he argued the means tested approach does. (Ever wonder why giving a tax credit to low and moderate income Idahoans is “coercive” but giving millions of dollars of business tax breaks are good for us.) After an hour long debate on all the amendments, they were all defeated. Drama. The Senate left HB81 on the amending calendar since the Governor has promised to veto any bill that is not means tested. They plan to come back to it next week. Stay tuned.
A bill to make English the official language of Idaho passed the Senate this week not because it is such a good idea but because “the people want it.” While the Senate sponsor, Mel Richardson heralded the bill’s intent to unify Idahoans and downplayed any practical effects it might have, it was Senator Edgar Malepeai, who grew up in American Somoa, who stopped the show. “Looking around the chamber, I think I’m probably the only one that has English as a second language…[I believe] it is democracy—not the English language—that unifies all Americans.” Still, the bill, which has 9 Senate co-sponsors, passed the chamber 20 to 15, closer than expected. It now heads to the House where it will be hard to stop.
with her back to Latin America and Asia, said William Tomayo of the Equal Opportunity Commission, a civil rights attorney and a speaker this week at the Boise City Club, commenting on the history of America’s immigration policy. George Grant, a Magic Valley farmer and organizer of the Snake River Growers Association and another panelist, warned the crowd and policy makers not to shoot themselves in the foot by creating a hostile environment for foreign workers who are critical to Idaho’s economy. That was the City Club. Over at the Statehouse—well you already heard about the English Only debate. The Senate did pass the memorial asking Congress to change the REAL ID Act, though not unanimously as it did in the House. They also defeated Mike Jorgenson’s bill to make employers liable for certain health care costs for injured undocumented workers, if they’d known that those workers lacked legal documentation. Senator John McGee’s bill to require proof of legal residency to receive any public benefit, awaits action on the Senate floor.
and wackier in the House. Representative Lenore Barrett argued on Monday that promoting public pre-school was a lot like what went on in the Soviet Union. “…The government owned the children for all intents and purposes and government was in charge of their education.” Although supporters of HCR 18 protested vigorously that this simple resolution was “not a communistic plot,” the resolution was defeated 43 to 27. On Friday House lawmakers passed a competing resolution, HCR24, that opposes any promotion of preschool and asks the State Board of Education to publicize on its website the skills and knowledge kids should have when they enter Kindergarten. In the meantime the Senate passed a bill that lowers the school age from 5 to 4, making it possible for public schools to offer preschool programs. It now has to make its way through the House minefield.
a conservative legislator told me a few years ago. Chilling. He said that would be the only way to make changes in the public schools. Fast forward to 2007 and the Republican House and Senate leaders are bringing forward a bill to do just that. The plan, which they say is not going anywhere this year, provides for a $3,000 salary increase for teachers in exchange for giving up their contract rights and tenure. This “alternative teacher compensation model” would be voluntary but teachers have been told that those who choose the current career track would never see significant raises. Legislative leaders are now telling the Idaho Education Association that they want to talk. It doesn’t have to go down this way. Idaho teachers have brought forward ideas on how to improve teacher quality without taking away their rights or contract protections. In Colorado, it was the teachers’ union that helped shape merit pay proposals. Funny thing. Maybe the people who do the job really do have the answers.
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