I want to wish everyone the best of luck for the fishing opener, and a happy and joyful Mother's Day! Enjoy and be safe as you celebrate.
This week we began to see conference committee reports come to the House floor after, House and Senate conferees generated compromise bills. I did vote for the Veterans bill, however, most of these bills contain tax and/or fee increases, massive spending increases, or both, along with problematic policy provisions.
For example, the Higher Education bill funds free 2- or 4-year college for some students, which was funded by eliminating funding for degrees in high-need industries and scholarships for underrepresented teacher candidates. You can watch my speech on the House Floor during the debate on this bill here.
Another example is the Housing bill, where Democrats raise the Metro sales tax by a quarter of a percent to subsidize renting apartments, but don't do anything to ease burdensome regulations that make it more expensive to build housing at all cost levels in the state.
The remaining omnibus bills are still in process, but they all are lacking transparency, with back-room deals, no public input, or without Republican legislators in the negotiations. So far we have seen multiple conference committees hammering out their deals away from the public eye, and then come to committee with a final deal only to pass it in minutes and adjourn. This is not how the conference committee process is supposed to work.
I will continue to be your voice, and insure that the priorities of District 24A are heard as these final bills are debated on the house floor.
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