Texas Budget Likely Headed To Conference Committee

AUSTIN (AP) - The 2012-13 Texas state budget is likely headed for a House-Senate conference committee after Senate Republicans pushed their bill to passage by using a loophole to bypass Democrats.

The Senate plan would make about $11 billion in cuts from the present budget, although the cuts are less drastic to those in the House's austere $176.5 billion spending plan. The plan next goes back before the House, which is expected to reject the Senate version and appoint a conference committee to negotiate a compromise.

After a week of delay, Senate leaders used a procedural maneuver to get around a long-held Senate tradition that requires a two-thirds agreement for the chamber to consider any legislation. Senators voted 19-12, along party lines, to approve the plan.

Normally a two-thirds majority is necessary in the Senate to take up any bill, a supermajority that leaders didn't have for the budget plan. But Republicans bypassed Democratic opposition by using a special rule that allows House bills to be considered on certain days without a two-thirds approval. The Senate's budget plan originated as a House bill.

Senators have hailed the two-thirds tradition as a mechanism that nurtures compromise and bipartisanship in the Senate.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, the Senate's Democratic leader, said she and other Democrats were concerned about the precedent set by the maneuver.

"No longer will any minority party in the Senate have a say in the budget bill," Van de Putte said.

The GOP has a 19-12 majority in the chamber, but criticism over the budget mounted from both sides of the aisle over the use of about $3 billion from the Rainy Day Fund.

Republicans argued that $9.4 billion in the reserve fund should be left untouched, so it would be available during future state emergencies. Democrats said proposed cuts to schools and other programs are inhumane when the reserve fund is sitting idly by.

Sen. Steve Ogden, the chief Senate budget writer, defended the budget, arguing his team was able to maintain current services despite a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall.

"What do you do when the economy is not so healthy? The first thing is, you do no harm to that economy, you do everything you can to get that economy back on its feet," Ogden, R-Bryan, said shortly before the vote. "This budget ... is a bridge to the future. It does not hurt the economy."

In response to the eroding support, Ogden offered an amendment Wednesday that stripped the contentious rainy-day money from the budget. The move helped him garner support from conservative Republican senators -- but it cost him support from key Democrats.

The plan makes about $11 billion in cuts, compared with the current budget, though the cuts are much less severe than those in the bare-bones House version. Public schools and Medicaid providers, including nursing homes, would take the brunt of the cuts.

"This budget treats people as numbers," Van de Putte said. "We cannot forget those numbers are people and I have heard their voices and I have seen their faces and I cannot ignore their pleas."

Ogden's GOP-condoned compromise replaces about $3 billion in rainy-day money by underfunding Medicaid, pushing those payments to the end of the budget period. Absent increased revenue from an improving economy -- which he expects -- the budget would then force across-the-board cuts to state agencies other than basic public school operations.

"The promise is that the money is going to be there, and frankly, I dated guys like that," Van de Putte said, casting doubt on assurances that state coffers would see an uptick in revenue as the economy improves.

Ogden's plan underfunds public schools by more than $4 billion. It cuts reimbursement rates to Medicaid providers by 6 percent, compared with more than 10 percent proposed in the House.

"Some seek to distract attention from the draconian cuts by emphasizing that the budget passed by the House of Representatives is significantly worse," said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, a Democrat from Laredo. "Unfortunately, while the House budget is horrific, the Senate budget is simply awful."

She said the Senate plan "blocks or delays access to critical health services for thousands of older Texans, Texans with disabilities and Texans with chronic diseases."

The state is facing a revenue shortfall of at least $15 billion. The hole is partially because of the economic downturn, but a structural deficit in the state's taxing system also has contributed to the gap. Leaders have said for months that the budget would have to take a cuts-only approach, without raising taxes.

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