Jeremy Alford writes about that
latter exercise, which, while just a couple of billion dollars in cash and about twice
that in bonds of which only a few hundred million goes to new projects compared
to the operating budget that is over four times that combined total, itself
nonetheless causes dysfunction. Unlike with the operating budget, the
bizarreness of which comes from a straitjacketed fiscal system that poorly
matches revenues to expenditures on the basis of need largely because lawmakers
have given themselves so little discretion over it, with the capital outlay
process legislators have a great deal of discretion but then in effect hand it
over.
In both cases, these convolutions
have evolved because they suit the needs of legislators. With the operating
budget, passing so many statutes and along to eventual voter approval so many constitutional
amendments has set aside about four-fifths of all state-generated revenues for particular
purposes. Many years this manufactures a crisis among the few areas unlinked to
money, causing great agitation as some portion of funds ends up backing low
priority needs while those considered most important face cutting and
tremendous gymnastics to get covered whatever of them can be.
While this elicits wailing and
gnashing of teeth from some self-proclaimed reformers who then implement all
sorts of tactics to treat the symptoms, few if any have the guts to go after
the disease, which is far too many dedications. Legislators, despite their grumbling,
prefer it this way because it helps them to disclaim responsibility for spending
choices. If they loosened dedications significantly, every year they would have
to make choices about where to send money, upsetting some special interests in
the process that might retaliate come reelection time. By removing as much as
they can from decision-making, they avoid the heat and they have a ready-made
excuse as to why when money goes to certain places that’s not their fault, throwing
up their hands and braying that it’s out of their control so don’t blame them –
when it really isn’t beyond their abilities, of course, since a change in law
could solve for many of these directions.
Concerning capital outlay, legal
changes would not be even necessary to improve performance. This budget’s formulation
involves first a calculation of the net state tax supported debt, which can be
no more than 6 percent of state revenues, where the difference between that and
outstanding bond obligations is the amount of new construction allowable in the
budget for that fiscal year. Then legislators pass a bill filling it up, almost
always having to keep ongoing projects and jockeying among themselves to get
new stuff in particular to their interests and districts.
The problem comes when, almost
every year, they cram more projects in than funding authority exists. This then
punts the final disposition to the State
Bond Commission, where informal practice places more allies of the governor
on it than any other interest can muster. Thus, the governor has
disproportionate influence over what actually gets funded, and he can use this
leverage as a tool to further his policy agenda in other areas.
Legislators carp about this, and
Alford reports they express a desire that things were different. This reaction is a
prime example, for those who behave these ways, of saying one thing but doing
another, for all they would have to do to remove the power they default to the
governor is to approve of a bill that has only so much spending as there is
borrowing capacity. But they don’t, for the same reason they don’t reform the
state’s fiscal structure: abdication of responsibility where they can accrue
credit for doing something – getting a project into the capital outlay bill –
and then blame somebody else – the governor – for sabotaging their heroic
efforts, without ever letting on they could solve their own problems if they
were willing to take the heat for putting some projects in while rejecting
others. The more they can heap in, the less heat they feel when they deflect blame
elsewhere.
So it’s hard to feel sympathy or
get excited about this moaning and complaining, because in both instances these
self-induced problems are so easy to fix: get rid of so many dedications and don’t
let the governor become the deciding factor by having the discipline to fund
only what’s available. However, that kind of initiative takes political courage,
which always has been at a premium in the Capitol. As a result, don’t expect
any changes, because legislators want things this way no matter how many sides they
talk out of their mouths on this issue.
2 comments:
Yes, some blame must go to the Legislature, and I suspect many of them are going to pay for it in October and November.
However, as just about everyone has agreed NOW, we have a STRUCTURAL DEFICIT problem, one that has grown and balooned under Jindal, one that is choking us to death, and his recent executive budget presentation (to which he again did not attend because he had something more important to do in another state) made no effort, not one iota, to try to change and begin to remove that systemic problem.
Let's all wave good-by to Bobby as he leaves us with our state in terrible condition after his eight years. We owe you a lot, Governor!
Amen! Amen! Amen! to the prior comment.
We were, as you were too, Sadow (perhaps even more than us), totally fooled by this man, and we will regret it for a long time.
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