Day 39 - Today was Policy cutoff for the House of origin. We had a terrible bill pass out of the State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee this morning ... HB 1371. The original bill debanded, defunded or otherwise eliminated a bunch of boards and commissions to the tune of $10.304 million. I firmly believe these boards and commissions provide greater opportunity for the public to have a say in State Government, but I also understand the need to cut spending. I proposed an amendment that would have removed the five most expensive boards and commissions and saved $9.981 million, but the Democrats wouldn't take the amendment. Instead, they passed an amendment that saved less then $500 thousand. Now that's some REAL reform ... or not. Just for clarification, it costs the state around $500 thousand to run for ONE HOUR!
I've actually been having a lot of success this session and many of my amendments have been accepted by the Committees I serve on. For example, today I had a striking amendment accepted in the Environment Committee. I'm still learning how to work over here and there are really a lot of good people on both sides of the political spectrum ... we may not always agree, but many are willing to talk things through.
Tomorrow we should be debating the Supplemental Budget, yet again, and I expect there to be a few fireworks. I'll be in the General Government and Appropriation and Oversight Committee until late into the night, since the fiscal cutoff is rapidly approaching. With any luck Operation Chaos and Mayhem will begin tomorrow or Monday ... stay tuned.
#Rep #David #Taylor #HB #1371 #15th #District #State #Rep
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