MA: The Governor's Budget (Debating)

[TJ in Oregon]

This needs a lot of work unfortunately. Riley proposed large cuts to agriculture, energy, and tax expenditure in order to eliminate corporate income tax. While I understand the logic behind eliminating corporate income taxes to persuade businesses to relocate in the Mideast, his proposal is more ambitious than I'd like.

I would like to propose adding certain tax expenditures back in. The original version of this removed things like charitable tax deductions and the child tax credit. I do not support eliminating that and will veto any budget includes those cuts.

I propose adding the following to expenditure:

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I'd also like to add the tax expenditure section back in in its entirety except for the corporate tax breaks, which we'll compensate for by keeping some of the corporate tax cuts:

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[TJ in Oregon]

On the revenue side, I want to start over with last year's because Riley's math has some oddities.

From the expenditures, we can afford about $50B in revenue cuts. I want to focus them on cutting the sales tax (because it disproportionately affects the poor) and corporate taxes because we're cutting their tax benefits.

Here's my proposal:

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[TJ in Oregon]

I also support TJ's budget. Shall we bring this to a vote?

What specifically are you voting on? Both amendments simultaneously?

[TJ in Oregon]

Are cuts to healthcare spending warranted?

Even with the cuts, this still represents an increase over 2012 healthcare spending, in particular with the first two items.

Is there a particular item you believe should receive greater funding?

We do after all have a surplus, albeit small, and have ran a surplus for the last two years. The revenue numbers also have not been updated from last years' numbers yet (we'll need the assistance of the GM for that), so I expect it's actually a bit larger than these numbers show.

[TJ in Oregon]

Can we get a vote on the amendment soon? Are there any questions about it?

[TJ in Oregon]

Any other questions/amendments before we bring this to a vote?

What about my revenue amendment? The one that was passed only included the spending changes.