The last time Kentucky had a governor of one party and a legislature of the other party, the governor proposed increasing a relatively new 3 percent sales tax to 5 percent.
Asked why he asked for a 67 percent increase, Republican Louie Nunn said something like, “You get in just as much trouble for stealing a sheep as you do for stealing a lamb, so just take the sheep.”
In other words, if you’re going to touch the third rail of Kentucky politics (we have no subways) by raising taxes, make the most of it. Get money to spend. Nunn did, but was forever known as “Nickel Nunn” and never won another office.
Nunn came to mind Tuesday night as Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear asked the Republican legislature to pass a budget with “admittedly moderate” tax increases. A press-briefing handout had called them “modest.” A better word would be “small,” like Nunn’s lamb.
But in 1968, the governor was much more powerful, and for two decades the Democratic legislature had atrophied under strong Democratic governors. It took another decade for the General Assembly to really assert itself and gain independence – partly with a 1979 constitutional amendment that decoupled legislative and gubernatorial elections. (They would again be coupled in 2028, under an amendment the Senate sent to the House on a 31-3 vote Jan. 16.)
In 2020, a Democratic governor must deal with a legislature with Republican supermajorities in both chambers. About all Beshear has going for him is incumbency and public sentiment. “Public sentiment is everything,” Abraham Lincoln said, but it and the power of incumbency can be fleeting – especially for a Democratic governor who won a plurality election in an increasingly Republican state largely because the GOP incumbent was personally unpopular.
Republican leaders are already nipping at Beshear, complaining that he didn’t give them a briefing before the speech (which he did for journalists) and reminding us that he appointed no Republicans to the state school board after he vacated it upon taking office.
“It was pretty disappointing for a guy who keeps talking about trying to set a new tone and being bipartisan,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer told Jack Pattie on Lexington’s WVLK Radio Thursday. “What we’re finding more and more in this governor is that his actions don’t match up with his words.”
So, in his effort to pass his program and navigate a narrow path to re-election in 2023, Beshear has already had some slip-ups. But so far, the substantive Republican reaction to his $24.6 billion budget has been muted, mainly because most of its $147 million revenue measures are already favored by a good number of Republicans.
The exception is an increase in the minimum tax on limited liability companies, from $175 to $225 a year, which Thayer called “a non-starter . . . You can pretty much count that out.” But it would generate only $8.8 million a year, and it looks like a piece of low-hanging fruit Beshear can afford to give up, allowing Republicans to say they blocked his higher taxes.
Rep. Steve Rudy, chair of the House budget committee, told me the most likely proposed taxes to pass are those on electronic cigarettes: “We’re trying to curtail this. . . . I’ve had a lot of school superintendents and teachers tell me it’s becoming an epidemic in the schools.”
Beshear’s biggest revenue measure, legalizing and taxing sports betting, may be in trouble. The idea seems to have gained support recently, but after a House Republican caucus Wednesday, members said it doesn’t even have one-third of the 61 GOP representatives’ votes.
That shows the longstanding rural-urban divide among Kentucky Republicans, and the growing strength of rural GOPers – many of whom unseated rural Democrats in 2016, when Donald Trump led the ticket. (That constitutional amendment would also couple the elections for president and governor.)
But budgets and tax increases buy things, and people have their prices. Some rural Republicans’ objections to sports betting may fade if they see it is key to financing some things they want, such as raises for classified school employees. So far, the most-heard objection to Beshear’s spending plan is that his one-time, $2,000 pay raise for teachers leaves out cooks, janitors, bus drivers and other classified school employees. School safety needs more money, too.
One usual goodie bag for legislators, roads, is very slack because Beshear hasn’t embraced an increase in the gasoline tax. As a candidate, he seemed ready to support it, but the day before the election Senate President Robert Stivers proposed that the transportation secretary be confirmed by the Senate. The Beshear folks have made clear that any deal on a gas tax will have to include agreement on the governance issue. The governor is not without leverage; how will he use it?
Al Cross (Twitter @ruralj) is a professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media and director of its Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. His opinions are his own, not UK’s. He was the longest-serving political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal (1989-2004) and national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010.
NKyTribune and KyForward are the anchor home for Al Cross’ column. We offer it to other publications throughout the Commonwealth, with appropriate attribution.
