Transcript of Lt Governor Folsom Responding to the State of
the State Address
As always, the Governor did a good job of communicating the
issues for us. There are certainly some
serious issues before us. We probably
face the toughest budgets we have ever faced in the history of the state in
years back to back. The economy generally
recovers after a recession, but we have not recovered completely this time. But
the Governor enumerated the issues that are going to be important. One that received a great deal of response
and enthusiasm from a bi-partisan perspective is fixing the PACT
crisis. I’m focused on that as I think
Democrats and Republicans are focused on it. I think there’s going to be a lot
of work done to solve that problem.
I personally see PACT as
a priority issue.
There has been a resolution introduced in Washington
just over the last day or two asking for additional stimulus money – a six
month extension of the stimulus money.
There is hope at this time that Washington
will take some action and a lot of people are hopeful that we can have some
additional help but we don’t really know that right now. I do know this, we are facing a 7% reduction
in the education trust fund that we are going to have to adjust and we are probably
looking at proration in the area of 12%.
We are really going to have to be serious and function in a
bi-partisan way and work at solving problems.
Even though it’s a political year, we don’t need to get political. We need to go ahead and address the budget
crisis in this state.
A best case scenario - and I’m hopeful for it - is that we will pass both budgets without
having to come back for a special session and that we will fix the PACT
program.
There will be Charter
School legislation and legislation
defining what bingo is and what bingo isn’t.
You are going to see those things come up in the session.
Everyone has their own opinion about which of these bills should
pass or fail. I personally would like to
see the budgets addressed and passed. I
would also like to see the PACT program made
whole. We are looking at a pay now or
pay later scenario. We will be looking at
hundreds of millions of dollars in litigation if we don’t solve it. Those are two very important issues we must
address.
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