Posted by The Democratic Caucus began this session right where it left off last session–working hard for Alabama families. Last year, the Senate Democratic Caucus had great success in passing our agenda. We passed a $50 million dollar tax cut, doubled the size of our nationally recognized Pre-Kindergarten program, increased the Children’s Health Insurance program (”CHIPS”) by 14,000 children, and passed the Alabama Housing Stimulus Plan helping 7,000 Alabama families buy a home. We also led the way in making the State more accountable by passing legislation that puts the entire State checkbook online as well as putting the Governor’s contingency fund and flight logs online. There were many other successes.
This year, we are working very quickly to pass our agenda–an agenda that seeks to protect our children, protect our seniors, create jobs for Alabama citizens, and make Alabama government more accountable to the people. This week we made substantial progress by passing out of committee bills to ban no-bid contracts, expand unemployment benefits and provide more than $1 billion dollars in money for needed road and bridge construction without raising taxes. Last year, the Governor and every Republican Senator opposed our highway jobs bill and successfully killed it. This year, Senator Del Marsh has stated that he is against our highway bill and has introduced his own highway construction bill (SB229)–one that proposes to raise gasoline taxes earmarked for road construction. I can’t think of a worse idea than raising gasoline taxes. It is also interesting to note that every single Republican abstained from voting on the bill to ban no-bid contracts.
I also spent some time this week visiting editorial boards across the state with other Democratic Senators. They were just as shocked as we were at Governor Riley’s “don’t worry, be happy” approach to the budget. His proposal to balance the budget using inflated projections and Obama stimulus money that he expects Washington to pass despite our Republican delegations opposition to it, reminds me of a phrase coined by Ronald Reagan: ”Voodoo Economics.” The Democratic Caucus will continue our focus on balancing the budge while protecting our children and our seniors.
I look forward to blogging again next week.
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Mr. Little: I remember your remarks regarding PAC-to-PAC legislation. I believe you said that you don’t support elimination of PAC-to-PAC transfers because your constituents haven’t voiced adequate concerns about it.
Is that still the case?
Was passing a tax cut last year a good idea in view the state’s current fiscal problems?
voting for the tax cut and expanding pre-k was a good thing, but weren’t those items that the governor proposed in his state-of-the-state last year? Which items that he proposed this year are you and the dem caucus going to support? (and then try to take credit for?)
I would like to know what legislation you have in mind to “protect our children”. I have found that whenever a politician uses the phrase “protect our children”, they are trying to pass laws that take the rights and responsibilities out of the hands of the parents and place them with government. Please explain what legislation you have in mind to “protect our children.” If it is not a proposal to strengthen parental rights, strengthen the family, abolish abortion, put education back in the hands of the parents, then I would venture to guess you are ON THE WRONG TRACK! Please give examples of your agenda!