|
April 17, 2009 · There are winners and losers in every budget. In this one, some are easy to pick out. Retired teachers get a thousand dollars one time bonus in the House version of the 2010-2011 budget. Middle income families would get additional money for college tuition. And there’d be money to expand the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program. Democratic Representative Garnet Coleman says the decision to expand CHIP prevented what has been a perennial firestorm during budget debates. “So this is a real special time where a lot of it is already in the budget because people believed that there were – on the committee believed that there were important advances that we needed to make,” said Coleman.
But there are still plenty of lawmakers and special interest groups who feel like they’re on the losing side of the ledger. Right to Life groups are upset that a Senate provision to ban state money from being used in stem cell research is not in the House budget bill. There’s even controversy over the 11 billion federal stimulus dollars being used to balance the budget. Some worry the funds are being used to grow government, which could put the state in a bigger budget hole in 2011. Republican Dan Flynn is on the Texas Conservative Coalition, a House Republican caucus. “We’re very careful when we take stimulus money. We’re not going to want to do any programs that are going to be lasting beyond that stimulus federal money. That will probably be where some of the debate will be. Because there’s a difference of opinion of how everybody looks at it,” said Flynn.
Among the items funded by stimulus dollars are: $4 billion for the Texas Education Agency; $2 billion to pay for Medicaid caseloads; and about $1.6 billion for TxDOT. The House will start debating the bill this morning. Debate could easily last throughout the night and even into Saturday.
|
