General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., June 17, 2014
Roads Held Hostage: Day…um, I Lost Count. Seven legislative days remain, still no word of any sort of fix to the $70 (or $90) million hole in the State’s transportation/infrastructure budget. Looks like we’re getting in ‘patch, then kick the can down the road’ territory. The very idea that D’s can’t or won’t tout a needed $70 (or $90) mill road repair/jobs program pretty much defines what’s wrong with Delaware’s brand of ‘Democrat’. BTW, since it looks like the 495 repair will cost somewhere around $20 mill, I’m hedging my bets as to whether the hole in our transportation funding is $70 mill or $90 mill.
OK, there are only a few ways that I can write the same story day after day. Whether I’ll run out of ways to write it before a fix is arrived at remains to be seen. Check back tomorrow.
Oopsies. Did I say tomorrow? Breaking news, and it ain’t good. A real bleak fiscal picture, must-reading for anyone interested in what’s gonna get funded and what will not. Here’s the takeaway quote:
“The problem is that no one wants to raise taxes for anything. You don’t want to raise the gas tax. You don’t want to raise income taxes. You don’t want a sales tax. You don’t want any of these taxes, but you still want the infrastructure,” Bhatt told lawmakers.
Speaking of infrastructure, DELDOT’s capital proposal is $128 mill, $70 mill less than last year’s. Revenue-shifting and the General Assembly’s refusal to even consider a gas tax will mean deteriorating roads, bridges and infrastructure. Hey, hopefully they’ll be out of office when stuff actually falls down. Then they can blame it on someone else. Cowardice. Proof that these election-obsessives don’t live in a reality-based world.
Here’s last Thursday’s Session Activity Report. Some previously-discussed bills passed, most of them praiseworthy: HB 264(J. Johnson), HB 300(Baumbach), HB 320(K. Williams), HS1/HB 302(Jaques), and HB 323(Osienski).
I had not previously mentioned HB 345(Scott), but I should have. HB 345 “give(s) executors access to deceased persons’ digital assets”. John Manifold’s description, which is clearer than the bill synopsis. 6 Rethugs voted no: Blakey, Briggs King, Gray, Kenton, Peterman, and Wilson. You’ll have to ask them why they’d make things more difficult for executors to carry out the wishes of the dearly departed.
Guess what? John Kowalko’s bill requiring both the University of Delaware and Del State to open their books cleared committee. Granted, an amendment had to be agreed to in order for the bill to clear committee, and the bill is not as strong as I’d like. But here’s what’s important. Should the General Assembly pass this bill (and I think it’s less likely than more likely), it will have taken at least the first halting step towards transparency as it relates to these two institutions, both of whom receive large sums of public money while shutting the public out of its operations. BTW, here’s why I think it’s less likely than more likely. I think that the reason why House leaders allowed this bill out of committee is because they plan to use it to increase leverage on the U of D to approve the data center/energy plant. I hope they prove me wrong.
Today’s Senate Agenda features legislation to make public most Family Court proceedings. I think. SB 235(Ennis):
provides that paternity, divorce, property division and alimony hearings are presumed to be public proceedings and that the Court has discretion to hold the proceedings in private for criteria specifically outlined. The Bill also clarifies that adoption, custody, visitation, third party visitation, termination of parental rights, guardianship, permanent guardianship, and Child Protection Registry hearings are private, except that the Court may open the hearings to the public under a specific criteria.
The language in bold is what confuses me. I’m all in favor of court discretion, there hasn’t been enough of it, but does this mean that certain influential people will be afforded discretionary privacy not available to others? If not, I’m fine with the bill.
SB 186(Henry) attempts to shed some light on those anonymous dark money contributions. Whether the bill passes or not, don’t hold your breath on this ever taking effect. I’m sure that court challenges are likely to follow.
The Sunset Committee attempt to clean up the mess that is the SEU (Sustainable Energy Utility) takes the form of SB 150(Poore). Which reminds me. Sen. Harris McDowell, who is/was the principal architect of the mess that is the SEU, is sitting on legislation that could promote utility-run energy efficiency programs. HB 179(Scott) passed the House over a year ago. Read the synopsis. Near unanimous support in the House. The bill was assigned to McDowell’s Senate Energy & Transit Committee on June 18, 2013, where it has now languished for a year. Why? The principal architect of the mess that is SEU is pushing for his beloved SEU instead. Here’s what he says:
McDowell turned the tables, saying O’Mara’s proposal would be expensive. “If they’re going to pay to do it, they’re going to just put it in the rate base, and the consumers pay,” McDowell said, referring to Delmarva. Delaware consumers, he said, are “fed up with everything put on the bill now,” including the Bloom Energy surcharge.
Well, yes, that could convince me if the SEU hadn’t screwed things up so badly, and if the bill didn’t authorize only cost-effective programs, which are defined in the bill. This is an abuse of power by a committee chair. The Chair cannot possibly be objective on this, it’s a clear conflict of interest for him to have the power to bury this bill. The President Pro-Tem should take steps to address this. After all, should McDowell’s opinion have merit, his fellow senators can vote down the bill.
Today’s House Agenda features legislation enabling charter schools to keep any savings realized from negotiating transportation contracts below the maximum allowable bid. Hmmm, wonder if this is available to public school districts? Anyway, it’s been the ‘practice’ of the Joint Finance Committee for the past five years.
HS1/HB 212(Keeley) requires that ‘all convicted DUI offenders install an ignition interlock device in the vehicle they operate’. This program has apparently had success in other states, and there may well be some federal incentive money available should Delaware enact this law.
I strongly support HB 332(Osienski), which ‘provides for an automatic interview to be given to an applicant for a merit position who is already employed by the State as a casual seasonal doing the same job.’
HB 367(Heffernan) strengthens Delaware’s laws governing underground storage tanks, and provides for both a clean-up and cost recovery continuum.
The House Education Committee considers a pretty weighty agenda today. Uh, something tells me that this bill is not going anywhere. Worth it though, for the apoplectic response by the corporate education gurus. Whose motives become more transparent at every turn.
I promise to be transparent on today’s Al Show, 10-12, WDEL 1150 Newsradio. Listen right here. We’ve got lots to talk about.
Tags: Delaware Family Court, Delaware State University, Delaware's roads, El Somnambulo, Featured, Harris McDowell, Steve Tanzer Delaware, Sustainable Energy Unit, University of Delaware
Considering that the General Assembly has gerrymandered itself to the point that more than two-thirds of the districts are essentially safe seats for the incumbents, I find it incredible that there is not one single legislator, even from the safest of districts, who dares stand up and say: If we want to live in a real state, with real roads and services, and not in a banana republic, we are going to have to raise taxes.
The public will not accept the reality that we do have to pay for some things (we cannot rely forever on corporation fees and sin taxes) until a couple of the leaders we elect will make the case.
I’m not saying that every dollar in the state budget is already well spent, or that there is no waste or overlap, but I believe that the amounts being wasted now might be enough to fill some potholes but would hardly be adequate to replace crumbling bridges.
Instead of cowering in fear in front of voters, a majority of whom are most likely from your own party, our legislators ought to be standing up and showing some real leadership … moving us forward in the 21st century, and not backward toward the 19th.
Meanwhile, in Sussex County, Ruth Briggs-King and Brian Pettyjohn wrote a letter in the Cape Gazette calling on the need for a new traffic light at a bad intersection near Georgetown.
Its only socialism and expansion of gov’t when a Democrat does it.
The public will not accept the reality that we do have to pay for some things (we cannot rely forever on corporation fees and sin taxes) until a couple of the leaders we elect will make the case.
Of course the public could be forgiven for being a little suspicious of the case for regression consumption taxes while we are tossing out tens of millions annually in subsidies to corporations and (despite the presumed “progressive” position) taxing millionaires in Greenville at the same rate as public school teachers in Milford.
A gas tax is as close to a pure user fee as you get. You pay the tax for what you use. Heavy equipment driving alot of miles pays more than anyone else. If the tax truly is spent directly on road projects, I really fail to see how this is especially regressive.
regressive gas tax?: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3578.pdf
The perfect is not the enemy of the good unless you make it one. Better a regressive increase in a tax that, in percentage terms, has shrunk for years as the price of gasoline has increased, than no road repairs.
Those are the choices on offer. A less regressive tax is not on the table.
ironically the increase mpg has reduced consumption of gasoline, adding to the staggering revenue problem as it is a per gallon tax.
What I find most interesting is that people who are upset about a proposed 10 cents a gallon increase in a gas tax-money that would stay in Delaware and pay to preserve our infrastucture-have not sounded a peep about the 15 cent a gallon increase at the pump-money that goes into the pockets of the oil companies out of state-an increase since the Governor’s proposal.
Indeed. PA raised their gas tax .10 and in North Wilmington there is maybe a .03 or .04 difference in gas price between stations in PA and those in northern DE. The DE sellers are getting definite gravy from the fact that stations close to them have *had* to raise their price.