Lawmakers OK budget gap bill Midnight debate turns acrimonious

AUGUSTA – An acrimonious atmosphere tainted the closing hours of Wednesday’s special legislative session as minority Republicans in the House blamed Democratic spending policies for the state’s deepening budget deficit.

Following approval by the House, the Maine Senate enacted a budget bill after midnight which closes a $240 million gap with a number of programs cuts, one-time transfers from lapsed department accounts and some creative financing that some legislative critics have dismissed as gimmicks.

After watching several amendments go down to defeat, House Republican Leader Joe Bruno of Raymond addressed the 121st Legislature for the last time. He accused Democratic leaders of steamrolling GOP objections to the budget bill by threatening to use their superior numbers to ram a majority budget through the Legislature.

“We had two areas of disagreement and we couldn’t even reach a compromise on two areas,” he said. “You would have had your two-thirds budget. You’d have been there. All of a sudden, somehow we were told: ‘Look, you’re in the minority, we’ll just pass a majority budget.’ That is unfortunate – not only for us as a Legislature, it’s unfortunate for the people of Maine.”

House Majority Leader Patrick Colwell, D-Gardiner, said it was clear there were divergent opinions on the resolution for the budget shortfall. He denied there was any attempt to “disadvantage the minority” and said Democrats were only trying to fulfill their constitutional obligation to balance the budget.

“Maybe people wanted more, some people wanted less,” Colwell said. “The fact is this budget is balanced. It’s balanced tonight. I think we owe it to the people of the state of Maine to get this job done for them and for us and for this institution.”

The Republicans refusal to submit a competing budget plan further frustrated Democrats like Rep. Randy Berry, of Livermore, the House chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

“This minority report is discouraging to me because the comments criticize the majority report, but the minority report is ought-not-to-pass,” he said. “It does not present a balanced budget. It does not address the needs in any way or the current situation. It leaves it to the Democrats and the independent member of the Senate to deal with the situation.”

Berry went on to state he believed the state’s financial difficulties were the direct result of the “greed of corporate America,” an opinion that was quickly challenged by Rep. John Buck, R-Yarmouth.

“We are here because the people in this room and the [Senate] have spent more than we have taken in,” Buck said. “It has absolutely nothing to do with the perceived greed of corporate America.”

Rep. Thomas Murphy, R-Kennebunk, said the entire Legislature should have led instead of followed during the budget-building process.

“We abdicated our responsibility and we overspent,” he said. “We knew what we were doing. What concerns me as a co-equal branch of government is that we let the chief executive decide the root that we were going to go.”

The House ultimately beat back six amendment efforts and enacted the budget 78-59 in a party-line vote shortly before midnight. The governor is expected to sign the measure today.

Called into special session by Gov. Angus S. King, members of the House and Senate prepared several amendments to the budget bill approved Friday by the Democratic majority on the Appropriations Committee. The bill largely represents the original proposal submitted by the governor.

Republicans in the House and Senate refused to sign on to the measure, claiming it contained too many “gimmicks” including a $48 million deferral in payments to businesses under the Business Reimbursement Tax Program and a 6 percent tax on nursing homes which would be reimbursed to the facilities under federal Medicaid funding. A similar plan for hospitals, known as a “tax-and-match” program, was rejected by the Appropriations Committee after the Maine Hospital Association agreed its members would pay a one-time $3.5 million tax. The Republicans did not offer a competing budget plan for legislative consideration.

Efforts to find consensus between the parties failed after GOP lawmakers insisted that the deferral of the BETR payments needed to be linked with a phase-out of the property tax on equipment. Although Democrats agreed the tax should be eliminated, they argued significant changes in the state’s tax structure should be part of a larger review of tax policy. In an attempt to provide some relief for businesses adversely affected by the delay in payments, the Appropriations Committee included a provision in the budget bill that will provide low-interest loans for companies that need them.

The Senate attached three amendments to the budget bill which were also approved by the House. One was a technical amendment clarifying language in the document while the other two required no state funding. The Senate also defeated a handful of amendment efforts before enacting the budget in a 18-12 vote at 12:21 a.m. today.