House Minority leader Danny Short (R-Seaford) offered Republicans' take on building the state budget in the weekly GOP message.
Short says the focus should be on completing this year’s spending plan and not possible shortfalls next year.
He says funds from a pair of bank lawsuit settlements can cover this year’s approximately $30 million gap – and Democratic proposals to create new tax brackets for high-income earners are premature.
“Our budget process is thoughtfully designed to adjust to changing economic conditions. We should allow events to unfold as they should," said Short. "Next year we can responsibly deal with the actual fiscal challenges instead of acting out of fear now and potentially placing an unnecessary burden on our taxpayers."
Short adds using one-time funds like the bank settlements to balance the budget is not unusual and Democrats have already agreed to use other one-time funds in this year’s operating budget.
Full text of GOP weekly message:
Hi, I’m State Representative Danny Short.
By the end of this month, the General Assembly must pass a balanced budget for the new fiscal year that begins on July 1st.
According to the latest state revenue estimates, we need just about 29 million dollars to cover the budget that legislators have been crafting for the last five months.
Other issues may await us in the budget we’ll be enacting next year.
Our Democratic colleagues want to meet these challenges with tax hikes.
House and Senate Republicans respectfully disagree.
For the upcoming budget, we can address the shortfall by using some of the nearly 62 million dollars the state is receiving from two lawsuit settlements. While some may question the use of the one-time funds, it should be noted that Gov. Markell and General Assembly Democrats have already supported the inclusion of other one-time money into the budget.
Looking ahead to the spending plan we will be enacting next year, some projections have predicted a 150 million dollar shortfall. However, those estimates are built on suppositions that may never materialize.
Recently, House and Senate Democrats introduced a bill to raise the state income tax on selected wage-earners. This would impose a huge additional liability on taxpayers. We believe these types of actions are premature and are less about fiscal accountability than they are about avoiding tough decisions in an election year.
Our budget process is thoughtfully designed to adjust to changing economic conditions. We should allow events to unfold as they should. Next year, we can responsibly deal with the actual fiscal challenges we will face, instead of acting out of fear now and potentially placing an unnecessary burden on our taxpayers.