General Fund Could Skip Tax Increases
One of the biggest pieces of the house budget fix takes 50 million dollars in ‘use taxes’ from the education budget.
But since the rest of the tax plan was put on hold Tuesday, lawmakers are pumping the brakes on this piece as well.
“We had that bill in position should that become part of the solution as it pertains to the general fund. But at this time, lots of ideas are floating around. We’re trying to work through those in a methodical fashion so we wanted to have this ready to move through the legislative process and put it in that position,” said Rep. Bill Poole.
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The bill was carried over just in case the house plan goes through.
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Representative John Knight says since the committee couldn’t come to an agreement on the revenue measures, will come out with a full budget Thursday, but the tax measures probably won’t be in it.
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“I can’t say exactly how we’re going to address it but if you don’t have any revenue then you’ve got to go in and start cutting and you have to start finding money from other sources,” said Rep. Knight.
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There has been a lot of debate on the house plan over the last couple of weeks.
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Many lawmakers ran on pledges of no new taxes, but Knight says the state doesn’t have a lot of options.Â
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“There’s no question the tax proposal would generate about 190 million dollars and there were some other proposals that generate up to 500 million. I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that,” said Knight.
