Sen. Jeff Enfinger: Alabama Needs New Taxes

The end of the 2005 regular legislative session is near, so it's possible that we'll soon be able to rest easier. The major items remaining on the legislative agenda are the budgets for the General Fund and the Education Trust Fund.

Sen. Jeff Enfinger (D. - Huntsville) is dissatisfied with the General Fund budget will try to delay action on it in order to force a special session. Apparently, Sen. Enfinger believes that Alabama needs a hefty tax increase. According to the Huntsville Times,

"Nobody likes to pay taxes," Enfinger said. "I don't like to pay taxes, but the General Fund is 20 percent out of balance as far as structural income and structural expenditures, and that's not sustainable."

The shortage in the General Fund is precisely why Gov. Riley proposed to start funding some General Fund programs with revenues from the Education Trust Fund. This "diversion" would have funded programs that were education-related, although opponents of the plan were right to point out that some of them were only incidentally so.

The legislature, bought and paid for by the AEA, didn't seem to like the Governor's idea much. Instead, they would tack on 2 percentage points to the Governor's proposal to increase teacher salaries, add a substantial amount of money to an already-bloated higher education budget, and fail to adequately replenish the rainy-day fund. Gov. Riley has threatened to veto the education budget, and we'll see very soon whether he follows through on that threat. Given the current makeup of the legislature, though, it seems unlikely that there would be any real movement towards the Governor's plan in a special session. Guess that's where politics comes in, huh?