Republican lawmakers embrace their inner toddler and send Hobbs a DOA budget
Opinion: The party-line vote by the House will do absolutely nothing, despite all the bravado and defiance Republicans displayed on social media afterward.
Laurie Roberts
The Republican-run Arizona House on Monday passed a $15.8 billion state budget for the coming fiscal year that will …
Well, no, actually, it won’t.
As a serious proposal to address the needs of the state and avoid a July 1 government shutdown, their “skinny budget“ was a complete waste of time.
As political theater, however, it was the stuff of Oscars.
GOP says Dems are pressing for a shutdown
Cue the Republican sales job.
“I voted YES on the budget today to keep the government running so no Arizonan is held hostage to special interests,” Rep. Austin Smith, R-Wittmann, tweeted. “Democrats keep threatening a veto from Katie Hobbs. They are willing to shutdown the government to protect special interests. SAD!”
“Arizona House passes budget to avoid Arizona shutdown,” House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, tweeted. “Will Governor Hobbs Veto this bipartisan budget or will she do what’s right for every resident of Arizona?“
Seems to me a bipartisan budget would require at least one Democrat supporting it. This one passed both the House and the Senate with a bare minimum of votes, all of them Republican.
Hobbs won't sign:Arizona House passes Republican budget
But to answer Biasiucci’s clearly rhetorical question …
“The issues Arizonans are facing require more than business as usual,” Hobbs tweeted, shortly after the budget cleared its final hurdle. “I will not sign a budget that is just more of the same and does nothing to demonstrate a desire to move our state forward.”
This is no continuation of last year's budget
If Republicans had been truly interested in approving a budget that Hobbs would sign, they would have negotiated a plan with Democrats.
Instead, they demanded that Hobbs pass a supposed continuation of last year’s budget before they will even consider any of her priorities, pointing out that Democrats supported the spending plan last year.
“Democrats LOVED this budget last year,” Rep. Jacqueline Parker, R-Mesa, tweeted. “Now with their puppet Hobbs in office, they’re feeling greedy for EVEN more of your tax dollars. Don’t ever let them tell you the dems are here to get things done.”
But this budget isn’t really a continuation of last year’s budget.
It’s actually short of last year’s spending plan, given one-time spending gimmicks employed by the Legislature last year. Rep. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, who along with his fellow far-right conservatives opposed last year’s budget but voted yes on Monday, told the Arizona Mirror the budget is really $2.3 billion less than last year’s spending plan.
And it contains none of the spending priorities of Hobbs, who submitted her own equally unrealistic $17.1 billion budget in January – one that had Republicans clutching for their inhalers.
Like it or not, Republicans can't avoid Hobbs
Hers was an opening salvo, an invitation for negotiation.
The Legislature’s reply was the equivalent of a toddler putting his fingers over his ears and singing LA LA LA.
No real hearings, no real input from anybody. Just a so-called continuation budget that really isn’t even a continuation of last year’s budget.
It’s clear the Republicans don’t respect Hobbs as governor. Heck, some of them don’t even believe she is governor.
But they can’t avoid her – not unless they’re willing to shut down the state.
This is a time for serious people, real leaders dialed into the political reality of divided government and skilled in the delicate art of compromise.
Great performance art. Terrible way to govern
Instead, we have the big babies of the Arizona Legislature, taunting Hobbs by sending her a budget that is an insult – one that'll go nowhere.
Meanwhile, this week’s marathon Senate Elections Committee convened on Monday to hear yet another presentation on the many ways in which our elections are supposedly stolen before passing yet another batch of bills that, like the budget, will go to live in Vetoland.
As performance art, it’s powerful stuff.
As a way to run the state, not so much.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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