The Senate Rules Committee this morning punched a huge hole in the proposed budget deal — by rejecting the bill that would create a temporary increase in the state sales tax and spells out how the money would be spent. Oddly, enough the Legislature’s Web site shows the same committee signed off on a separate bill that would authorize a special statewide election in November to approve that sales tax increase.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives appears to be heading toward action on the budget deal, but without either the sales tax election or the proposed switch in 2012 from graduated income tax system to a flat rate, which was supposed to be the inducement for fiscal conservatives to support the temporary sales tax. That would imply legislative Republicans are ready to send Gov. Jan Brewer a budget with a lot of the changes she wanted, but without any hope of mitigating the education and health care funding cuts that she opposes.
Brewer has been threatening for weeks to veto the entire budget if it doesn’t include a sales tax election or similar alternative. But does she have the backbone to veto a budget on the final day of the fiscal year and start shutting down portions of state government that aren’t protected by the state constitution?
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