This week I was provided with a copy of the latest version of the
proposed state budget also known as Senate Bill 334. This bill will
contain the majority of the budget agreement recently reached between
legislative leaders and the Governor.
The 45 page bill proposes to spend over 6.9 billion of our tax dollars
as part of the fiscal year 2008 state budget. This budget will expand
the size of state government base appropriations by $377 million
dollars, or about 5.7% more than last year's bas appropriation of 6.5
billion dollars. If you have read budget related news stories or
caught the sound bytes on television, you may find this statement
confusing.
State leaders have said that one of the key successes of the 2008
budget proposal is that it actually shrinks the size of government a
small amount. While government base appropriations are higher in the
2008 budget, the amount of excess money from the previous year
(referred to as spill over money) is less, and the government does not
have as much extra money to spend in addition to base appropriations.
When base appropriations and spill over money are accounted for, the
government will spend 7.188 billion dollars this year compared to
7.196 billion last year. Thus the government will in fact spend 8
million dollars less this year than last year.
While I am certainly happy about the reduction in spending, I still
believe there is a tremendous amount of inappropriate spending in the
proposed budget. One of my greatest concerns is a section requested by
Governor Henry which would allow for additional bonded indebtedness of
the Oklahoma Higher Education system by about 50 million dollars. The
good news about this proposal is that it is only a fraction of the 663
million dollars of debt requested in Henry's initial budget. However,
I have stated my opposition to incurring any new indebtedness. If we
are serious about rolling back big government and enacting important
pro-growth reforms such as eliminating state income tax, the issue of
big government debt is not one we can ignore. Reducing the size of
government is difficult enough because of past inappropriate spending
by state politicians and new debt simply adds to this problem.
Henry's demand appears to have been at the core of his negotiations.
It appears that legislative leadership gave in to the demand in return
for the Governor's support of legislative tax cuts and such issues as
the audit of the Department of Corrections.
In upcoming days, the House will not only consider Senate Bill 334 but
will also vote on a number of individual agency appropriations bills.
These votes will give us an opportunity to reflect the desires of our
constituents who are for smaller government. I intend to vote no on a
number of agency bills that are either too large or altogether
inappropriate functions of government, and will certainly vote against
attempts to incur new debt.
I have been encouraged by the stance on streamlining government taken
by house leadership. House Speaker Lance Cargill recently released the
following statement. "The bottom line is that many state agencies are
duplicating what other parts of state government do. I'm sure the
defenders of the status quo will fight our efforts, but Oklahoma's
state government has simply grown too large. There are nearly 100
state agencies, and the average citizen must confront an alphabet's
soup of acronyms and confusing red tape. That's not serving the
taxpayers well. Oklahoma can do better."
The Speaker authored House Bill 2110 to create a BRAC-style commission
that will provide recommendations on consolidating state agencies and
ending outdated functions. This bill passed the House by a large
margin but was killed in Senate committee.
It is my hope that in future budget years, the legislature will not
maintain the present size of government, but shrink it significantly.
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