March 28, 2011 04:42 AM UTC

State Budget Impasse Imminent?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Pay attention to what the Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel reported this weekend, folks:

The machines in the cluttered basement print shop across the street from the Capitol should be humming right now, printing hundreds of copies of the 2-inch-thick state budget.

But the shop is quiet because there is no state budget.

The six lawmakers on the budget committee – three Republicans and three Democrats – cannot agree about whether to make additional cuts to public schools or to take money earmarked for local governments and businesses…

The Democrats have all but agreed to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s plan for a historic cut to public schools, but they don’t want to make the cuts any bigger.

On the other side are Republicans who want the state to end the new sales tax on cigarettes and stop raiding money for local governments and businesses…

Unless Hodge’s committee comes to a unanimous agreement, it cannot send the budget to the Legislature. This year, it is split 3-3 between the parties, and although the members remain friendly, they were far from making a deal Friday.

As of now, the situation as we understand it can’t be called close to a deal–we’re still very much in the posturing phase, with the Senate Minority demanding further cuts (for some odd reason, as they’re probably the least relevant player), local governments understandably trying to protect themselves, and K-12 education pretty much the only place left to cut further. And not really.

All of which makes the unrelenting drive to reinstate repealed tax exemptions, or cut cigarette taxes, in our view, a very risky proposition politically–good for paybacks, very bad politics if the full facts of these respective positions are widely publicized. If all of those Colorado voters who are upset–or about to be–by massive cuts to their kid’s public school clearly understand which side wants to make it even worse? By cutting taxes on cigarettes?

We’ll wait and see whether cooler heads prevail here, but as we’ve warned several times, “cooler heads” is not the first thing one associates with the name Kent Lambert. Or frosh Jon Becker. From Lambert’s Glenn Beck-style gold obsession to Becker’s windbagging over a seven-cent fee hike, these just are not responsible custodians of a seven billion dollar general fund.

And the choices they are making, not to mention the choice made by their colleagues for them to serve on the Joint Budget Committee, may be a very public debate soon.