Conflicting Messages from your Delaware GOP.

There seems to be a confused message from Dick Cathcart and his minions on the GOP side of the aisle in the General Assembly. Since the budget was released yesterday, and posted online today, we have heard from the Republicans that this budgets spends too much, but it should spend more.

Over at the wonderfully named www.delawarestatehouse.com, which by the way is not the website for the entire General Assembly as that name purports it to be, but rather it is the website for the Republican minority caucus (don’t you love Republicans always pretending that they are in power and represent the majority even they have been rejected at the ballot box in historic landslides?), there have been two straight press releases (with audio cut-ins so that WDEL and the Rick Jensen show don’t have to do their homework).

The first one worries that Governor Markell’s budget plan was about $80 million more than the current budget, or an increase of 2.58 percent, and that cutting 500 state jobs and holding down spending would be advisable.

The second one, released yesterday after the JFC-crafted operating budget was released, contains the same spending concerns as the first press release, but also contains some new spending concerns that we don’t normally hear the Republicans make:

Despite the fact state spending rose dramatically, the amount of General Fund money appropriated for public education dropped by nearly $77 million. Spending on higher education is also down in the new budget, dropping from $224.6 million to $212.5 million – a reduction of more than $12 million.

First, these figures are not even accurate. The $77 million figure is not a cut in actual money appropriated for education. It reflects the removal of debt service from the individual state agencies after being consolidated under the State Treasurer’s office. Republicans lying again? Yeah, no one is surprised. Further, the cuts originally proposed by Governor Markell (the administrative cuts and transportation cuts), that we have discussed here, were restored by the JFC.

But, ignoring reality for a moment, aren’t the Republicans being critical here of a spending cut? Impliedly if not expressly? In tone if not in content? Indeed, they should be jumping for joy at their made up figures, as cutting spending across the board, including in areas like education, has been the Republican mantra since at least the 30’s. Yet, the press release is critical of these supposed cuts. Which begs the question of whether the GOP wants to restore this phantom $77 million in education funding from the General Fund, and whether they want to restore $12 million in higher education spending? Or perhaps they want to increase it.

Speaking of the JFC, perhaps Dick Cathcart is unaware that the public has now full access to the budget negotiations thanks to the Karen Peterson and the Democrats passing HB 1 last year. The Open Government bill allowed the public public access to Delaware General Assembly meetings, records and committees, including the Joint Finance Committee’s meetings and their budget markup process. Now, the Joint Finance Committee has on it Democrats and Republicans. And not once during this process do I recall hearing that a Republican member on that committee proposing specific cuts to the budget. I also do not recall hearing that Joe Miro or Pam Thornburg offer their own motions to cut spending. The same is true for their Senate Republican brethren, Cathy Cloutier and Dori Connor. Sure, given that the GOP is in the minority on the committee as it is in the GA, it is likely that their motions and amendments would be defeated, if they were made.

On the Rick Jensen show, Dick Cathcart says that “we don’t even know what’s in the budget.” That statement is either one of two things. It could be a colossal lie, given two of the members of his caucus sit on the JFC, along two other GOP Senators, and you would have to assume that they all talk to each other about the proceedings. Or it could be the clearest evidence yet that the GOP is simply not interested in governing, for if he doesn’t know what it is in the budget, it means he and his JFC members have not been doing their homework or fulfilling their duties as elected members of the General Assembly. Given the fact that the GOP had opportunity to offer specific spending cuts during the JFC budget mark up process and did nothing, we can be more sure than ever that this latest criticism is not genuine concern about governance, rather it is only politics.

Republicans will criticize anything and everything, but they will never participate in actually doing the hard work of governing. Remember last year when the GOP cried crocodile tears about the pay cut for state workers? This year Cathcart wants to cut 500 state jobs. The Grand Old Changeable Party.