Edwards
called
the year’s third special session because the lower House GOP will not
accede to backing his requests to spend all outdoors. It will
grant him spending all indoors, witnessed by the fact that in the second such
session that a majority voted for reinstituting a third of a cent increase in
the sales tax due to expire, but that offer, representing 80 percent of his
desired total, his party found wanting and defeated that measure the second
time it came up (any tax increase requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber of
the Legislature).
Therefore,
back to the salt mines go legislators, as Edwards attempts a sitzkrieg strategy to wear down House
opposition (in the Senate his lapdog GOP Pres. John Alario has enough
feckless Republicans to muscle through whatever the governor wants). Yet the call
he made to do it illustrates how his position has weakened.
The call itself limits policy latitude considerably compared to the two earlier 2018 versions. This results in part from small successes last time: some minor increases in income taxes and more wealth redistribution through an increase in the wasteful Earned Income Tax Credit. Still, significantly, it contains no authorization to legislate on income taxes and only permits that on the same menu of sales taxes as previously.
Thus,
the preferences Edwards expressed as written into the first two calls, that tax
increases occur on income and primarily on corporations, he no longer will
enforce. He has accepted that only the sales tax would rise, permanently he
hopes but the run of play suggests temporarily – even as the durations tucked
into the sales tax increase bills unable to win final passage from the previous
session, six years, mimic perpetuity.
Also,
Edwards surrendered on the budget, signing the version passed in the last
special session. It hardly differs from the near-facsimile he vetoed almost
three weeks ago from the regular session. The only major difference comes in Section 19.A,
which argues for proportional restoration of contingent funding upon adoption
of any revenue-raising measures.
In
other words, by doing this, Edwards recognized he couldn’t leave himself open
to having no spending authority at all and taking the blame for that if Jul. 1
came and state services began shutting down. Further, it signals that he surrenders
on letting the GOP House leadership call the tune – sales taxes only and
temporary – because he now realizes he may get nothing at all if enough
anti-tax Republicans in that chamber stay the course and prevent any increase.
The leadership at least will campaign for something, even if not up to his
level, although he may harbor hopes of a one-off coup on the issue to muscle through
his preferred half-cent hike.
Still,
by his own words anything less than this he considers catastrophic, and
whatever “cuts” come he will personify these in the eyes of voters, so he will suffer
politically unless he goes whole hog.
Neither would he gain credit for shrinking government, precisely because he has
disowned that. Having to swallow anything but the half-cent causes him a major
defeat.
With
the narrowing of the call and his cornering into signing the budget, Republicans
have gained the initiative going into this session. Compounding this, Edwards has
lost line-item veto leverage over legislators, as the second session didn’t
address capital outlay, leaving him that bill passed in the regular session on
which the clock ran out and he had to act. Of course, he
used the power to punish certain recalcitrant lawmakers, but this did and
dusted that tool in his arsenal. He can’t use that threat now in the upcoming
session to sway votes in his favor.
The
House GOP should press its advantage here and go absolutely no farther than it
did with HB
27 in the second session – even as a strong
case exists to roll back even further. It continues to hold the cards and won’t
win the hand unless its self-inflicts defeat.
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