“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” – Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind
Or was that Rep. Kevin Wallace in response to the Oklahoma Senate’s budget plan announced to great fanfare last week?
You see, the Senate says, “Oh, can you See?” And Wallace says, “Clear as mud.”
Or put another way, House budgeteer Wallace is responding to his Senate counterpart Roger Thompson just like The Captain did to Cool Hand Luke in the movie of the same name when he intoned, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
And, frankly, all this is about par for the course at the Sapitol as the session approaches the halfway point. There is a lot of money to spend. Both chambers want the high ground for transparency in doing so and, as an old budget writer with 28 years’ experience in the process, the latest kerfuffle is much ado about nothing.
I predict come the latter part of May, Thompson, Wallace and their staffs will meet privately, negotiate the numbers, then trot the bills out one at a time and claim success.
And in so doing I say, so what? Three of the top four lawmakers are term limited, will be out of office by this coming November [all except Thompson]; therefore, new power brokers will fill the corner offices by next January and will do whatever they want with your money.
Please note I’m not including Gov. Kevin Stitt’s involvement in any of my remarks above because he’s barely a bit player. Even if he vetoes all or part of whatever ends up on his desk for signature, the short response from lawmakers is and will be, “Who cares?”
They will simply override his irrelevant actions, making him, once again, one of the most ignored men who wears a suit to work everyday in the state Capitol. Even the lowliest lawmaker has more stroke on deciding the spending of your money.
True, Clueless Kevin has a stroke of his veto pen but all 149 legislators have something far more valuable, and that is a vote.
So, the reality is, as the annual budget game is played out on NE 23rd Street, in fact it’s just another round of SNAFU …Situation Normal All F—– Up.
