I Have to Agree: A TEL Law Is a Big Win for Ken Blackwell
It looks like Mr. Blackwell’s Tax Expenditure Limitation idea will become law through the legislature:
Lawmakers Propose Spending Limit Law Instead of TEL Amendment
May 17 2006 8:28PMCOLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - In a compromise with GOP gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell, Republican legislative leaders will write into state law a government spending cap matching that of Blackwell’s proposed constitutional amendment.
The bill, announced at a late afternoon news conference by House Speaker Jon Husted and Senate President Bill Harris, also will clarify the ability of Citizens for Tax Reform, the committee that brought the issue, to pull the issue from November’s ballot.
“I believe he achieves his goal with this, he wins,” Husted said of Blackwell, who championed the Tax & Expenditure Limitation Amendment as a symbol of his campaign’s commitment to fiscal discipline.
Husted and Harris said the bill they advance within in the next week will limit state general-revenue growth to 3.5 percent a year, as Blackwell’s amendment did, but will not apply to local governments, school districts, libraries and other smaller entities.
I know some people are upset that the local governmental units are off the hook, but I believe for a lot of reasons that I thankfully won’t have to slog through that TEL would have been a straitjacket on local governmental units, particularly those in growing areas, which Mr. Blackwell hopefully create more of when he becomes governor. And besides, Colorado’s TABOR has never had local governmental restrictions; yet it enabled the state to achieve stellar growth in its first five years of existence, and growth that matched the rest of the country since then.
Hopefully, this will light fires in many more states.
As I said last night elsewhere, it looks like Mr. Blackwell is effectively governing even before he’s elected!
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UPDATE: James Rhodes posted on this entry over at the new and improved Right Angle Blog.
I don’t agree. I think this is a massive betrayal of his supporters by Blackwell. Legislation can be changed at any time, much too easily. The TEL amendment would have more force and be more difficult for future legislators to change. We need the TEL if this state is to begin attracting people and jobs again.
Comment by MAK — May 18, 2006 @ 9:50 am
My take: “They” screwed up in writing TEL by expanding it to include local governments without thinking it through. It doesn’t work for local govt because of their dynamics, especially ones in growing areas.
Rather than get creamed at the polls (which it would have; I would have voted against because of the local govt. elements), he’s having the state constraints written into law by the legislature.
Would I prefer a constitutional amendment? Sure. But I think “we” have to recognize that that battle was lost when the local stuff was written into TEL, and clumsily. Ken is getting all he can out of what I see otherwise as a screwup by his overzealous followers that should have been “vetoed” by him.
IOW, what you were hoping for never had a chance. I’d like to throttle the people who screwed this up, though, and to the extent that it’s Ken, shame on him.
The legislature, seeing the situation, could have said “forget this; your position is weak,” but they realized that TEL limits are what the voters want.
Comment by TBlumer — May 18, 2006 @ 10:02 am
I have to agree with Tom. After hearing Ken and his running mate drool over the TEL, and hearing the arguements against it, I began to do a lot of research. The LOCAL element was the REAL problem with it, and if they had not begun this process, Blackwell would have definately been in a dogfight this fall.
Comment by Jon — May 18, 2006 @ 10:26 am
The people of Ohio would have passed TEL — easily.
But the people once again will not get a say — will they?
Comment by Steven J. Kelso Sr. — May 18, 2006 @ 11:24 am
#4, I disagree. Having studied the local aspects, I’m convinced it would have been stomped.
Not that we’re a majority, but I’m against it (because of the local straitjacket), Pierce was against it for the same reason, and a plurality, if not a majority of the GOP committee types that Bill talked to throughout the state were leaning against, all again because of the misguided and/or miswritten attempt to include local jurisdictions in the law.
When it failed, the free-spenders and the media would have spun it as a defeat for the tax limitation movement in general and would have ignored the nuance between the state limit (good idea) and local limits (good idea, but not as written, and probably best decided by local jurisdictions).
I also don’t think anybody has a good counter to the argument as to why voters in, say, Ashtabula County, if it would overwhelmingly approve TEL, should be effectively dictating tax policy for Franklin County, if those residents voted overwhelmingly against TEL.
If there’s a lesson in this, it’s probably that Ken shouldn’t have turned the think tanks loose to write their dream bill without adult supervision.
Comment by TBlumer — May 18, 2006 @ 11:35 am
I’ve got to agree with Tom concerning TEL’s chances of passing. I would have supported it, but I don’t think it would have made it.
Comment by Eric Kephas — May 24, 2006 @ 9:54 am