With Senate done, House ready to debate budget ideas

So far, the cost of doing so while also balancing the state budget for the coming year without major cuts has been an increase in other taxes, particularly the sales tax.

And at this point, Senate President John Alario isn’t overly concerned about the schism in the House, or its effect on the Senate.

The House voted 85-0 on Wednesday evening against accepting the Senate amendments. “This will also give us time to bring those ideas back to the citizens we represent and gain their input”, Armstead said.

The bill passed the House on May 24 and heads back to the Senate for approval of any changes. House Republicans have signaled for months that their proposed tax breaks won’t be as substantial as the Senate, whose tax changes would eat up more than $1 billion in revenue through mid-2019. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said of a Congressional Budget Office analysis projecting that the House bill would cause 23 million Americans to lose coverage by 2026 and create prohibitively expensive costs for many others.

House members, however, voted 85-0 to reject the amended bill.

State senators also approved Thursday giving the State Board of Education $18 million from the Rainy Day Fund to make up for some of last year’s cuts.

Taylor himself has repeatedly acknowledged that insisting on even a small voucher plan could kill the full school finance fix, but says it’s worth fighting for.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not mention the budget office report.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation says the reduction is mainly because the bill delays the repeal of the 0.9 percent payroll tax until 2023. “We try not to do a partisan divide in the Senate, and I think that works well for us”.

The law, Senate Bill 16, reduces the first-time fee for a license to carry from $140 to $40 and the renewal fee from $70 to $40. Taylor ultimately included both in the version voted out of the Senate.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says his late father taught him how to be a cowboy, but “his real impact on my life was mentoring me in the art of politics”.

The motion upset Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, who authored the only “private school choice” bill in the House, which would subsidize private school tuition for students with special needs. “I know all of you have a place in your heart for these children”, he said.

“As long as the Senate is as it is going forward, every school finance bill will have some kind of a choice attached to it. And exactly what the composition of that [bill] is I’m not going to speculate about because it serves no goal”, the Kentucky Republican told Reuters, adding that President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could help whip votes again as they did for the House.

The bill makes those offenses state felonies. Roger Thompson said the tax increase is a necessary step. But it demands specific standardized testing of children receiving taxpayer dollars to attend private or religious schools, created to evaluate whether the payments are improving student performance.

Senate Bill 603 directs the Department of Corrections to assess each inmate’s risks and needs and come up with individual rehabilitation plans, making them less likely to return to prison.