While budget negotiations between the House and Senate are definitely making some progress, the same cannot be said about the tax negotiations which took an interesting turn late this afternoon.
In earlier tax conference committee meetings, Senate Chair Caryn Tyson (R-Louisburg) made it clear that she wanted one big mega tax cut bill that included everything the Senate voted for in Sub for HB 2228 (the massive reduction of over $500 million) and a whole bunch of small tax cuts rolled in. We suppose that as a candidate for Congress she wants to demonstrate her ability to crush revenue streams just like real members of Congress!
The House, while certainly not rejecting the idea of tax cuts, has taken a more cautious approach and appears reluctant to adopt one massive conference committee report, suggesting that some ideas should stand separately.
The conference committee was scheduled to return to meet at 5:00 pm but the House was still on the floor. It was right about 5:00 when House Tax Chairman Steven Johnson (R-Assaria) made a motion to concur in HB 2492, a bill in the conference committee that contains several tax changes that Tyson wanted in the big bill (a sales tax exemption on the purchase of gold bullion, a sales tax exemption on certain hospice providers, and permission for four counties to hold elections to raise local property taxes for local projects. If the House concurred, then these items would no longer be available to be put in a bigger conference committee report; if the House did not concur, the bill would stay in the conference committee but the House would have an official position against these items. The House voted 19 to 102 not to concur.
Senators were listening in downstairs in the committee room and reports have it that Tyson was not happy. She called the meeting off and left the room. Johnson and the other conference committee members showed up and, after much discussion and calls to Tyson agreed to meet again at 9:00 tonight.
We will report on tonight’s ongoing discussions tomorrow.
Schwab Says Good-bye
House Speaker Pro-Tem Scott Schwab (R-Olathe) took a moment of personal privilege this afternoon to announce that today would be his last day in the House. He is leaving tomorrow to accompany his child’s class on a trip to Washington, DC and as a candidate for Secretary of State is assured he will not be in the House in 2019 win or lose.
Schwab has twice served in the House with his two terms of service separated by two years after losing a bid for Congress. He was briefly replaced by former Rep. Ben Hodge (R) who earned a reputation for uncooperativeness with most people under the dome. Schwab has always been a gentleman even to those with whom he disagrees. We wish him well whatever he does next.
