Maybe this will get them to listen for once...
Legislators, Listen Up
House and Senate Leadership is largely term limited out or nearly so and Mary Fallin leaves next November and as Trump has already rejected her for a post on his team she can only do one thing to provide for her own future: soak the taxpayers and carry water for the special interests who might hire her after she is out of a job.
There is one fact that you can depend on always: Leadership will fight to the last drop of YOUR blood.
Next year is an election year. People's view of the legislature is at an all time low. Trump just crushed both the Democrats and the RINO Republicans in the November election because people are sick of rising taxes, special interests raping them, and the never ending excuses to why Republicans can't seem to follow their party platform and campaign promises.
You as a politician need to decide if you are willing to die on this hill, politically speaking. Do you betray the majority of the voters, both Democrat and Republican, or do you do the right thing and stop the tax increases and increased spending until the next session when you can focus on agency audits to find the waste in the existing state budget?
The anti swag bill was an easy fifty million dollars. The Bondsmen would love to see the state general fund receive their forfeited bonds instead of the local court clerk, there is another fifty million dollars. We have it on good authority that a simple change like requiring generic prescriptions be used when available will save millions and millions of dollars each year. DHS itself said that stopping benefits 12 days after a person becomes ineligible woulds save tens of millions of dollars each year so imagine how much could be saved by cutting benefits immediately when a recipient becomes ineligible?
You have seen the news of state agencies lying to the legislature and cooking the books, firing auditors that threatened to expose the corruption. Higher Ed spending millions on scholarships and cash money for foreign students and out of state students. Guess what? So have YOUR constituents, they have read those stories too.
You will be scored on the floor votes in this special session. Your score has the potential to rise above 100% if you are one of the good guys that represents your constituents or it could sink below zero to negative numbers if you are one of the guys that have sold out to special interests. And if you are one of those, it is never too late to come back to the light. You took the money, you won't get it next year if you do the right thing, but you will also be tough to defeat if you represent your constituents and turn your back on the corruption.
Or you can pretend you don't understand what is going on. You will be primaried, you might lose, you will face angry voters and a primary opponent waving your lousy voting record in your face on the door steps and community meetings. Or you could do the right thing and take the kids to Orlando this summer instead of knocking on doors.
