Stitt Steps on his.....Kannady
Wow, Governor Stitt made a huge blunder last week when he vetoed the budget bills. There was a $1.4 billion dollar budget hole and in the midst of pandemic the idea of raising taxes, adding new taxes, or slashing spending terrified the legislature in an election year. Add to that they had just received a big fat raise. That said, they did trim $75 million off education, though the federal money back filled $200 million to education, so education made out like the bandit they are.
HB 2741 and 2742 had cut 25% of the pension payments into the four state pension systems and divert about $112 million into the 1017 Fund which is a common education funding account. Then HB 2743 diverted $180 million from the state transportation agency into the main education fund. Stitt vetoed them all and the House and Senate overrode the vetos handily. The the main budget bill, SB 1922 was vetoed and overrode by the House and Senate with every single House Republican member voting for the override.
The bills in question did re direct pension fund payments, around 25% of the payments, but the fund itself was not touched nor did it alter the employer payments paid by the various agencies. This was surplus state funds that had been used to bring the state pension funds closer to self sustaining in the long term. Then starting in 2023 the missing money was to be paid back over five years.
The transportation money was offset by another bill giving the DOT the ability to sell $200 million in bonds to cover the re directed funds. Now we are no fans of bond money being used for capitol improvements or normal day to day repair and restoration. But, given the oil price crash and the pandemic it is better than falling behind on the state transportation eight year plan fixing the roads and bridges. And geeze louise, have we ever seen two major disruptions like the oil price crash and pandemic hitting all the revenue streams?
Of course all involved blamed the others but much of the blame can be laid at the feet of former Senator Mike Mazzei, the current budget director for Stitt. Mazzei's senate campaign was notable mainly for the amount of missed votes due to an auto accident early in his term, the turd just stayed home most of the time rather than doing the honorable thing and resigning for health reasons. What kind of entitled dirt bag would leave 80,000 citizens without a functioning representative in the Senate?
Stitt complained that the budget was created behind closed doors, that he had zero input. What he didn't say was that Mazzei had made demands in Stitt's name, four major demands that were deal killers for Stitt. It was a take it or leave it kind of demand and the House and Senate decided to leave it and set the budget themselves.
And Stitt himself wasn't blameless. The $767 million dollar CARES money caught the attention of the House and Senate and they wanted to be part of the divvying up of the loot but Stiff, well.... stiffed them on the distribution and Stitt appears to be planning to spend the money as he sees fit. To be fair it was illegal to back fill the budget with the money.
And the budget is depending on $319 million dollars in one time money, always a bad idea to set a budget using one time money as it won't be there next year.
But in the end, the process would have gone a lot smoother had not cronyism paid off Mike Mazzei with a space at the hog trough. As a taxpayer I am just relieved that no new taxes or tax increases were implemented. Should the education budget be cut is another story in itself.
Nondoc.com did a good story on the budget battles but what was hilarious was the comment section where former Senator Cal Hobbs just had to shoot off his mouth. Hobbs you will remember was arrested multiple times for DUI in Oklahoma a few years back and I believe I recall his getting busted down in Texas for the same kind of thing while he was supposedly going through re hab. Hobbs of course forgot what a hell hole the teachers pension system was when the Democrats lost power and how the Republicans did funnel billions of dollars since 2006 to bring the pensions back up to around 85% of self sufficiency if I recall correctly.
But good God, where does a man get the nerve to remain in polite company after being arrested for drunk driving? And it wasn't pretty, it wasn't a normal getting pulled over in a check point kind of arrest. One involved the offer of a $50,000 bribe to a small town cop during the DUI arrest, the other involved Cal Hobbs sitting in a booth in a convenience store reeking of booze and urine when the cop walks in to respond to the call. Hobbs stands up and leaves, with his shorts falling to his knees as he is walking out the store and Hobbs doesn't appear to notice a thing. Hobbs gets in the car, is having problems starting it with his shorts around his knees, zipper and button undone, while the officer is talking to him and observing. The police report is hilarious, it describes Hobb's shorts still down around his knees, underwear soaked in urine, and all the begging and pleading not to be arrested.
If you want to understand politicians consider this man. A normal man would be shamed by multiple arrests and would have moved to where no one knew his name and would keep his head down in all things. A normal man would have thought about his past votes and leaving the pension systems robbed of assets before pointing fingers at the diversion of a fraction of the money that had been flooded in to correct his own errors when he was a senator. Yet Cal Hobbs remains vocal and continues to call attention to himself caring not a whit that people consider him unrepentant and shameless.
Then again, Old Cal Hobbs might just have been plastered and banging away on the key board with his shorts down around his ankles, sitting in urine soaked underwear as he wrote comments on online blog sites so that his name was still being mentioned and seen by the unwashed masses.
