But I guess that’s how you know he’s in the GOP, right?
In yesterday’s Delaware Voice (New Journal), Representative J.J. Johnson reminds GOP chair John Sigler that he should stick to refereeing the food fights in Sussex County and leave the business of governing to those who will care about its details.
Sigler apparently spent his time writing about “runaway tax and spending”, which isn’t borne out by looking at the numbers. But no member of the GOP ever went broke waving the Tax and Spend flag at the local bulls. And as impotent as they are right now, they still haven’t decided to commit themselves to some better numeracy. But here is the *data* as cited by Representative Johnson:
Since fiscal 2009, our budget has grown by $145.7 million, or 4.3 percent, over a three-year period. That is less than 1.5 percent per year, which is hardly runaway spending. Of that $145.7 million, $112.4 million is due to increases in Medicaid, Welfare and teacher unit counts.
More than 75 percent of our budget increase is due to things we are required to fund. A recent News Journal article noted that there are an additional 48,000 people receiving Medicaid and 63,000 more people receiving food stamps since fiscal 2009, and our teacher unit counts are tied to student enrollment. And those numbers will continue to increase.
Unless Mr. Sigler thinks we should cut seniors off the Medicaid rolls or increase classroom sizes, these cost increases are unavoidable. I would hope he agrees with me that we cannot afford to abandon those Delawareans who depend on this aid.
Sigler has called for clearly failed policies, like super-majorities to pass tax and budget bills, TABOR, and other stuff that localities that submitted to this kind of GOP experimentation are working hard to get rid of. Places like Arizona and Nevada have had their bond ratings downgraded by Moody’s in part because the supermajority gives the power of stopping any rationality on budgets and spending to a few people. Meaning that they are likely to become much like California, where they haven’t been able to do much to address their fatal budget issues because a few Republicans won’t be responsible. But here is Representative Johnson:
Mr. Sigler also calls for a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds “supermajority” on all tax and fee bills and our “money bills” — the budget, Bond Bill and Grant-in-Aid. First off, state law already requires a three-quarters majority for Grant-in-Aid and the Bond Bill and a three-fifths majority for all tax and fee bills. Mr. Sigler is blowing smoke and then yelling “fire.”
Hello.
Mr. Sigler needs to stick to his knitting and get the in-fighting stopped in his own party — so maybe they may be competitive again, you know? — and then get themselves wrapped up in the actual facts of how this state is governed, so maybe they’ll not just sound smarter but they may come up with some interesting solutions to real problems here in Delaware.