By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
It now appears lawmakers will convene Monday to vote on a two-year state spending plan. A 20-member House-Senate conference has met for nearly two weeks to resolve differences in versions passed by each chamber.
House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, told reporters on Thursday, “Unless we can get something by late tonight, we probably couldn’t do anything on Saturday.”
That’s because it takes 36 to 48 hours to print the budget bill, especially given all the other bills that are still being considered.
David Osborne
Lawmakers originally were scheduled to meet Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, then recess for 10 days until April 12-13, to consider overriding any vetoes by Gov. Matt Bevin.
However, leadership of both chambers agreed to move Wednesday’s legislative day to Thursday, and to use a snow day from January next Monday to act on the budget and other legislation.
This means the final legislative days would be April 13 and 14, since the Kentucky Constitution mandates they end by April 15, and bans the General Assembly from meeting on Sundays.
“I think that, with the exception of the budget and budget-related items, anything that has not passed or does not have a clear path for it, at this point, the probability is low. But as you know, nothing is impossible.”
Revenue and tax reform are also part of the ongoing discussions with the Senate, according to Osborne, but two potential revenue sources are not part of the discussion – like casinos and legalizing marijuana.
“There seems to be very little interest in it,” Osborne said. “There’s great support out in the state, but there’s been very little indication of support in either chamber right now.”
He also said tax reform is one of those issues whose probability of passage is low. “Tax reform is difficult and complicated. I don’t think we can loosely describe what any action would be. We’ve got to make sure we have a detailed explanation of every single thing we do, at this point.”
When asked what he feels must pass for the session to be considered a success, Osborne said, “We have to have a budget, that is our one constitutional responsibility. The people of Kentucky are expecting us to do that, and anything short of that would be a huge disappointment.”
The evangelicals made their unholy alliance with president 45. Now this Easter weekend they have made another unholy alliance with Grover Norquest and the Chamber of Commerce to make sure the state does not receive any more much needed revenue.