Perry wants a pledge he can use as a political hammer
By the time the 83rd Texas Legislature ends its next regular session on May 27, 2013, state lawmakers are supposed to approve a new state budget. That's a year and 40 days away.
There are no spending requests from state agencies on the table. The next budget won't be used until Sept. 1, 2013.
Gov. Rick Perry wants everyone who will hold or wants to hold a House or Senate seat in that crucial budgeting process to sign a pledge today making key decisions about what the final document will look like.
There's nothing all that wrong with any of the five elements of Perry's Texas Budget Compact, which he unveiled Monday in a speech delivered in Houston. But there's a lot wrong with the way this sort of pledge has been used in the past, as a political hammer held over the heads of candidates seeking election and lawmakers trying to reach difficult decisions.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/16/3888468/perry-wants-a-pledge-he-can-use.html#storylink=cpy
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You've got a winner there.
The one pledge from the governor that concerns me is to "support a constitutional limit of spending to the growth of population and inflation." Having a constitutional amendment places a great deal of restrictions on future legislators. The current legislators are elected for one term and voters should retain the right to vote out poor policymakers and implement new policies which might require budgets to be enhanced beyond a certain statutory limit, particularly if those budgets have remained stagnant over a period of time. Their poor decisions shouldn't be enshrined forever due to a "feel-good" constitutional requirement.
