Put or shut up, Republican lawmakers have been told.
You show me yours and I?ll show you mine, the GOP has responded.
Actually, Senate President Thomas Mike Miller and Gov. Martin O?Malley have been a lot more polite in their entreaties to the members of “the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower,” as O?Malley likes to call them. But the message is the same: show us the state budget cuts you would make.
Miller sent Senate GOP Leader David Brinkley a letter on Monday formally requesting the Republican caucus to provide “a detailed proposal of reductions to state spending that you would propose as an alternative to the governor?s plan to which you have objected.”
Members of the party of Ronald Reagan and George Bush have a simple message: No new taxes.
Brinkley, Frederick-Carroll, wrote back to Miller late Thursday, saying that the party?s “past proposals for restraining state budget growth were serious” and “in many respects, remain valid today.” Those budget amendments proposed slower growth in spending on education and other areas, but were rejected by the Senate.
“They are trying to paint us into a corner,” Brinkley told the Examiner.
Once he and House counterparts list their budget cuts, Democrats will try to use them to scare lawmakers into voting for tax hikes.
Brinkley?s letter also aligned Senate Republicans with Comptroller Peter Franchot, a liberal Democrat, in calling the special session “ill-advised” and O?Malley?s budget plan “misguided.”
Miller found Brinkley?s response “very amusing,” particularly the references to Franchot. But he also said, “We?re not focusing on cuts at this point.”
The Senate Budget and Taxation Committee will hold work sessions today and Monday to bring out some part of the O?Malley package to the Senate floor Monday evening.
House Speaker Michael Busch said, “the first things were looking at are efficiencies in government” and Appropriations subcommittees will try to come up with a half billion dollars in cuts.
House GOP Leader Tony O?Donnell has consistently refused to release their plan to slow budget growth to 3.5 percent, but he said, “we may release parts” of it. “As soon as the governor shows the political backbone [tomake more cuts], we will sit down and have that discussion,” O?Donnell said.
