Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

Dangerous constitutional cocktails

By Caleb O. Brown

Some things just shouldn’t go together.

In recent years, the Kentucky General Assembly has been mixing up dangerous cocktails comprised of egregious lawmaking coupled with a blatant disregard for Kentucky’s constitution, all within the commonwealth’s budget.

Kentucky’s budget bill is properly labeled “an act relating to appropriations.” It’s the spending plan for the state and, unquestionably, the most important legislation produced by the General Assembly. Carefully spending the state’s income is, in fact, lawmakers’ only constitutional requirement.

However, when the General Assembly failed to pass a budget during the 2002 regular session, legislators became desperate in their pursuit of more spending and political cover. So they decided that the budget should not just include spending, but also fee increases and special-interest tax credits. The budget passed in 2003 – a year behind schedule – included several such revenue measures.

After dipping their toes in the waters of shoddy budgeting without incident, this unconstitutional process has engulfed legislators each biennium.

“By insisting that all revenue measures originate in the House, the founders reckoned that legislators … would restrain their spending or risk eviction at the hands of local voters with freshly rankled memories.”         

This year’s budget was overloaded with revenue measures, including a delayed cut in the corporate tax rate, a freeze on an otherwise variable gasoline tax, a new tax on cigarette rolling papers, a massive fee increase for amusement park rides and new fees attached to many vehicles, including trucks and tractors.

Each of these tax hikes and fee increases was unpopular. The attempt at delaying corporate tax reductions so angered Kentucky’s business owners that Gov. Ernie Fletcher called lawmakers back to Frankfort in June for a special session that restored the cuts.

Telling, isn’t it, that when lawmakers were forced to consider an unpopular revenue matter apart from the state’s largest appropriation bill, the outcome was exactly the opposite from their earlier vote taken when the issue was included in the budget?

Section 47 of Kentucky’s constitution prohibits intermingling appropriations and revenue matters in the same bill. It states that revenue bills must originate in the House and may not include provisions unrelated to raising revenue.

The mandate clearly separates revenue from every other bill subject, including appropriation measures. The last three Kentucky state budgets failed this simple, clear directive.

Raising money for state government activities should not be easy. Every change to the tax code should be considered solely on its own merits. And no amount of political gamesmanship should be able to protect incumbent lawmakers from votes that cut Kentuckians’ take-home pay or complicate how business owners calculate tax bills.

Politicians defy the commonwealth’s constitution by hiding revenue measures in the guts of other legislation more likely to pass – especially the state’s spending plan, the one bill considered by the General Assembly that really matters.

Kentucky’s founders wisely anticipated that politicians would find it easier to spend more if allowed to tuck new revenue streams into the final budget bill. By requiring separate bills for legislators to gather up spending money, they provided a mechanism that aims to limit revenues to just the amount needed to provide for basic services and fund the commonwealth’s pressing needs.

By insisting that all revenue measures originate in the House, the founders reckoned that legislators, forced to face reelection every two years, would restrain their spending or risk eviction at the hands of local voters with freshly rankled memories.

But while legislators deserve the majority of the blame, Kentucky’s chief executive must also bear some responsibility for failing to address their unconstitutional behavior.

Gov. Fletcher, who should provide the last line of defense against unconstitutional budgeting, seems utterly unconcerned about whether the commonwealth’s budgets pass constitutional muster. This year, Fletcher signed into law the largest spending plan – stuffed with revenue-enhancing measures – in our state’s history.

Fiscal problems aside, this year’s budget contained several provisions that simply don’t jibe with the only document that all lawmakers swear to uphold – the Kentucky Constitution.

– Caleb O. Brown is director of KentuckyVotes.org, a voter information Web site. Contact him at brown@bipps.org or at (270) 782-2140.

The Bluegrass Institute is an independent research and educational institution offering free-market solutions to Kentucky's most pressing problems.

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest /  White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN