The latter issue first and foremost the session
seems to aim at. Starting
next Monday, lawmakers will have 30 days – a week before elections if it
goes the distance – to sort out a list of items more extensive than the
month-long first such session tackled. Some are small items that could have
waited, but most deal with the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic and its
economic fallout.
The call appears to indicate the Republican
majority will pursue several intertwined tracks. As Edwards continues to use
statutory powers to keep more restrictions on personal interactions than most
states that keep entire swaths of the economy almost entirely closed – even as
the state
suffers with the worst indicators of all the states and follows a plan almost entirely at
odds with what worked in Sweden – the call leave plenty of room to change
that.
At best, Edwards, who stood by while legislators brought
themselves into the extra session, shows indifference to the entire effort, as
if everything is fine with the nation’s worst
affected state economy by the pandemic and his policies in response. “I am
hopeful that the legislative leadership will significantly narrow the scope and
the duration of this session so that they can do the work they deem necessary,
while at the same time working in a bipartisan and cooperative manner,” he
pithily declared – because he won’t like what happens.
Starting with something coming forth like legislation
that allows a governor 30 days to impose health emergency measures, but to extend
anything then would require some kind of legislative approval. Naturally,
Edwards will want to veto that, but if the GOP leadership has any smarts, it
will threaten to use
provisions under existing law to veto whatever his then-current, likely-excessive
regulations might be unless he signs off on this reform legislation that should
take effect immediately – better
late than never.
Along with that should come a series of tax cuts, spending
reductions, and repurposing of appropriations. The cuts could soften the economic
blow to the state, paid for by the reductions, with further monies from that redirected
to shore up the depleted unemployment insurance trust fund and assist local governments
in compensating for lost tax revenues caused by the imposed economic slowdown. Beyond
across-the-board belt tightening, scaling
back or eliminating just a trio of wasteful programs – Medicaid expansion,
the Motion Picture Investor Tax Credit, and the Earned Income Tax Credit –
could save hundreds of millions of dollars remaining in this fiscal year.
Again, Edwards, whose agenda seeks to keep state
government as large as possible, won’t acquiesce to this. His strategy is to
lead with an absence of leadership – praying that national Democrats in six
weeks win elections to control all majoritarian institutions who then will
launch a spending orgy to bail out profligate states causing long-term
detrimental economic effects – and won’t accept cuts anywhere willingly.
That contrasts with a number of other states, who
have started budget-cutting measures already.
That also stands in great contrast to Democrat
former Gov. Kathleen
Blanco, who called
a special session two months after the hurricane disasters of 2005 and another
three months later to deal with looming fiscal issues. Before and during these
she voluntarily began cutting back on state spending, cooperating with
legislators utilizing executive
orders so that they
didn’t have to file bills (except when dealing with the Minimum Foundation
Program or transfers from the Budget Stabilization Fund) implementing such changes.
The Edwards Administration will insist that no budgetary
problems for this fiscal year currently exist, and by extension no need for
a special session. Of course, almost
$600 million in federal funding due to run out halfway through the fiscal year
boosts revenues at present and its view discounts an unemployment trust fund
deficit likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars the payback for which would
be reflected beginning next fiscal year, plus ignores the estimated $714
million shortfall local governments face for this fiscal year.
Republicans will have to be clever either to force
Edwards’ hands with the cuts and redirections or to capture at least a couple
of House Democrats and/or no party legislators to make veto attempts futile. One
potential weapon to overcome intransigence is setting a date for constitutional
amendments that Edwards can’t block that emanate from the session.
Perhaps most notably in a larger political sense,
the call signifies how the GOP legislative majority regards Edwards as an
obstacle to solving state problems. By the time the session ends, they hope he
will have become reduced further to an inconvenient speed bump to overcome.
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