Well, you should give State Sen. Kevin Eltife two points for consistency. It seems that his knee-jerk reaction to principled, fiscally responsible public policy is to decry it as “crazy” and “insane”.
When Sen. Eltife, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, was asked recently about balancing the state’s budget, the Houston Chronicle says he responded this way:
It’s insane not use the Rainy Day Fund. We also have to find additional revenue.
…and…
There’s no other way to do this…. any other idea in this building is crazy to me.
Funny enough, this isn’t the first time that when confronted with conservative fiscal policy positions, Mr. Eltife has taken to name calling.
During Texas’ 81st legislative session, Sen. Eltife authored legislation to accept $555 million of federal “stimulus” to shore-up the state’s unemployment insurance fund. The federal dollars came with very expensive strings attached; Gov. Rick Perry and other conservative leaders had the foresight to oppose the Obama Administration’s offer and Eltife’s measure died in the House.
In the aftermath, Sen. Eltife’s position did not change as he asserted in a hearing that “it was insane to leave half a billion dollars on the table.”
Not taking the Obama money was one of the sanest actions taken by the legislature in some time. Sen. Eltife was wrong then, and he’s wrong again.
Sen. Eltife scored a dismal 37% on TFR’s Fiscal Index last session, and has refused to pledge to protect taxpayers. It should come as no surprise that he began the session by speaking favorably on a plan to allow a tax hike on his hometown of Tyler. It should be even less surprising he would so quickly and directly dismiss the conservative approach to government, instead going straight to breaking open the state’s piggy bank and to your pocketbook.
You might say, that fiscally irresponsible approach is just plain crazy.
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Andrew Kerr is the Executive Director of Empower Texans / Texans for Fiscal Responsibility
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