Jindal appears inflexible in budget talks

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s rigid stance on budgeting and taxes has worsened the Republican governor’s relationships with lawmakers and made it more difficult for the Legislature to reach a compromise on next year’s $24 billion budget.

House members are seeking to forge ahead on spending plan negotiations without including the Jindal administration because the governor has seemed unwilling to bend or consider their concerns.

Democrats want to look at ways to generate new budget dollars rather than continuing annual cuts and spending debates that weigh how deeply to strip funding from colleges and health care services.

Jindal refuses to consider any proposal that would result in a net revenue increase, calling it a tax increase – even bills that would eliminate or restructure tax breaks the governor repeatedly derided as “special-interest tax loopholes.”

On the other side of the aisle, Jindal continues to clash with a conservative faction of his own party, members of a House Republican bloc nicknamed the “fiscal hawks.”

The hawks object to the use of patchwork financing from property sales, legal settlements, fund sweeps and other one-time items to pay for ongoing programs.

They say it creates continuing budget shortfalls when the one-time dollars fall away and the governor and lawmakers must scramble to find new money to fill the gap and pay for the services a year later.

As a candidate, Jindal equated using one-time money for ongoing expenses as similar to using a credit card to pay for a mortgage. But that was before six years of budget woes.

Now, he proposes it year after year to keep from levying far deeper cuts to higher education and health care, the two areas must vulnerable to slashing.

Jindal has appeared unwilling to reconsider his position on piecemeal financing, proposing to use more of it in the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1 than he pushed for the current year.

Antagonizing the fiscal hawks further, the governor poured nearly all the $490 million in one-time money in his budget proposal into the state’s public college systems despite widespread concerns about the status of higher education funding.

Lawmakers of both parties have regularly complained of their frustration.

But in a twist, the governor’s refusal to budge – his refusal to increase state income through tax changes and his refusal to end the reliance on one-time money – appears to have prodded some rare legislative independence in the House.

Even Jindal’s hand-picked House speaker, Rep. Chuck Kleckley, R-Lake Charles, appears to have split with the governor on the budget and has thrown his support to bipartisan negotiations going on in the House, at least for now.

Kleckley had been supporting a plan that involved simply maneuvering the budget through the House and working with the Senate on a final budget that included one-time financing. But that approach ran into widespread opposition from House lawmakers, who say they should have a hand in crafting the spending plans.

Seventy-one members of the House used a procedural move to stall Kleckley’s approach, and by Thursday, Kleckley was touting the budget negotiations between the Democrats and the fiscal hawks as a “shining moment” of legislative independence.

The compromise being negotiated by the two sides would incorporate a mix of cuts and tax break changes – along with long-term adjustments to the budget process sought by the hawks.

The negotiators hope to have a deal worked out before the House budget debate set for Thursday, but they face tough hurdles to final passage.

Jindal has said he’s willing to work with the Legislature and to let them make the changes they think are appropriate. But he’s got firm parameters, and right now, lawmakers in the House don’t seem interested in complying with them.

If he doesn’t win in the House, however, the governor can take his fight to the Senate.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Melinda Deslatte covers the Louisiana Capitol for The Associated Press.