Just a little. Not much.
As a vote looms on a bare-bones budget that would slash education and threaten nursing homes with closure, House GOP leaders softened their rhetoric on Tuesday to emphasize that it is a starting point and that cuts could be eased later without raising taxes.
“I think there’s people out there that want to keep it right the way it is right now. But I think we’re going to be able to do things that are better,” said Jim Pitts, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Pitts – who last week said the budget proposal approved by his committee might be as far as many House Republicans were willing to go – said after a closed-door House Republican Caucus meeting that GOP members raised many of the same concerns that have been aired by Democrats.
“There’s a huge concern about what’s going to happen in nursing homes,” said Pitts, R-Waxahachie. “And what’s close to all of us – we all have a public school in our district – is what’s going to happen to our schools?”
I guess I’m glad to hear someone on the Republican side of the House express those concerns, though Pitts has been pretty realistic about this from the beginning. There’s not much in the story beyond hope for good news from Comptroller Susan Combs and a few accounting tricks to make you think there’s any action to back it up, however. Maybe they’re waiting to see what the Senate finds in the couch cushions.
“It is the beginning of the process,” Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said Tuesday. “I would say judge us by the budget we pass as a Legislature, not as a first, early-in-the-process budget proposal.”
Where you end up is certainly what ultimately matters, but where you start out says something about you, too. I think we’ve learned a lot already.
Whatever the case, the budget debate begins today. There are a lot of voices urging a No vote on HB1.
School districts across the state are urging their House members to vote no on the proposed budget that will be taken up on the House floor Friday. A letter sent to House members by the Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Association of School Boards and Texas School Alliance said the bill “proposes unsustainable cuts to your public schools” and should be rejected. “The significant reduction in state funding for school districts proposed in House Bill 1 inevitably will force districts to lay off employees, reduce salaries, or both,” the groups said.
[…]
“Before you vote on House Bill 1, we encourage you to consult with the superintendents and school board members of your school districts to understand the impact the proposed state funding cuts will have on your schools and students,” the letter concluded. “On behalf of the students of Texas, we urge you to vote against House Bill 1 until all budget balancing options are utilized to mitigate the proposed funding cuts for public education.”
You can view a copy of the letter here (PDF). I doubt it will have much effect, but I sure hope it serves to remind everyone associated with those organizations who to vote for and vote against next year. Remember that while the Senate version of the budget so far would cut funding less than what HISD is currently planning for, the House version cuts funding quite a bit more than that.
Also worth watching will be the hundreds of budget amendments, many of which would be as damaging as the budget itself.
At least three proposed amendments would prohibit funding of any organization that provides abortion services or refers pregnant women to facilities that provide abortion services. This is clearly aimed at Planned Parenthood.
Texas Conservative Coalition Chairman Wayne Christian has one to require universities to provide traditional family values centers if they support “a gender and sexuality center” for gay and lesbian students. Another of his would require universities to dedicate at least 10 percent of their courses for undergraduates to the study of Western Civilization.
Because there’s never a bad time to stick it to the gays, as it were. The only thing that could be better is denying health care to women who need it. Do yourself a favor and find a nice, solid wall on which to bang your head now. You’ll need it for later. The Trib has a list of all the budget amendments that will be debated, plus information about who proposed them.
As I wrote yesterday on another blog there are already family values centers at colleges. They are just across the street and are called church student centers. Baptist Student Center, Catholic Student Center, and you can go down the alphabet and many are there. I’m a Methodist but spent time at the Catholic Student Center near U.T. because it was such an interesting place.
“Wayne wants too much politics in the church and too much church in Politics.” I don’t quite get, or understand the reasoning of the 10 per cent of courses in Western Civilization. I think it would serve Wayne well to take a few classes in Western Civilization. I was a history major but I wouldn’t want to be his professor though because the facts may not agree with Wayne’s view of history. Especially if it goes as far as the early settlement of the America. Winthrop’s Boston “A Portrait of a Puritan Town” might fit his view or the experiences of the Pilgrims. Other colonies were completely different, for profit ventures, some deeply involved in slavery, some having indentured servants, people from debtors prisons and the poor (Georgia). I haven’t even mentioned the French in the North or South or other Spanish in the South. It’s a big complicated story and probably doesn’t fit his worldview.
Pingback: Eye on Williamson » Budget debate information