Utterly Pathetic.

Congratulations, Andria. You now have a budget w/o income tax increases, even on Delaware’s wealthiest.  Please leave.

Yes, the General Assembly has a budget, another smoke and mirrors kick the can down the road budget.

A combination of sin tax increases and realty transfer tax increases.  Personal income taxes couldn’t be considered b/c Bennett’s no vote took that bargaining chip off the table. Andria, please leave. And take your do-nothing dad with you.

She is not, however, the only one to blame. The Rethugs, who held a corporate tax increase bill hostage, got their elimination of the Estate Tax largely b/c Speaker Pete sucks as a dealmaker. Senate Rethugs’ ideological obsession to make people work for less made it next to impossible to craft a reasonable agreement.  They want to bleed government dry, not provide public services. Which makes them public servants in name only.

John Carney needed to be much more engaged in the process than he was. From the very beginning.  By substituting a 50-50 (budget cuts/revenue increases) formula in place of real critical analysis was a combination of laziness and lack of interest. So far, the hallmark of his term–although he did get marginally more big D Democratic in the last two weeks.

Speaker Pete relentlessly refused to allow more creative revenue-raising solutions to even be brought to the floor, which made passing HB 240 the be-all and end-all of his strategy. It failed and so did he.  Why that Caucus allows this bully to run roughshod over them is a question they’ll have to answer. He’s proven that he doesn’t have the answers and that he sucks as dealmaker.

The fact that smoke and mirrors were used to balance this year’s budget makes it clear: Next year will be more can-kicking, not to be confused with ass-kicking.  It has ever been true that you make the big changes during an off-year and not in an Election year as legislative cowardice increases exponentially in an Election year.

Utterly pathetic.

A few footnotes from last night. Colin Bonini introduced 20, 20, amendments to a bill pertaining to provision of craft training for journeymen and apprentices , then struck all 20. On July 2 on a bill that is STILL IN COMMITTEE. He is a virulently anti-labor asshole and was just lookin’ to score some brownie points from his anti-labor supporters.

Not to pick on Andria Bennett (but I will), didja know that she voted no on the alcohol tax increase?  I wonder what her proposal was to balance the budget and what cuts would be acceptable to her constituents. No I don’t. She never even thought about that.

The House did something that should have been done much earlier. HB 268 (K. Williams)  applies means-testing to the senior property tax credit and converts it to a ‘means-tested refundable income tax credit to be administered by the Department of Finance’. Unanimouly passed the House, but will have to wait until January.

No votes on the Budget: House: Collins, Kowalko, Wilson.  Senate: Bonini, Hocker, Lawson, Marshall.

Time to take a long hot shower.