Bentley: ‘I won’t settle for anything less than $541 million’ in tax hikes

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April 27, 2015

Gov. Robert Bentley delivers the 2015 State of the State Address, Tuesday, March 3, 2015, in the Old House Chamber of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. (Photo: Governor's Office, Jamie Martin) — Gov. Robert Bentley delivers the 2015 State of the State Address, Tuesday, March 3, 2015, in the Old House Chamber of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. (Photo: Governor’s Office, Jamie Martin)

CULLMAN, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on Monday spoke to the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce, telling the assembled crowd that he will not “settle for anything less than $541 million” in tax increases from the legislature.

“The way we fund our government is dysfunctional,” Bentley told the crowd, according the Cullman Times. “We’ve been doing it for 70 years. We’ve been patching together the General Fund every year. Well, we don’t have any patches or Band-Aids left, folks. We need to fix it right and fix it for good.”

Alabama’s “dysfunctional” budgeting process has been a point of debate for years, usually centering around the fact that 91 percent of the state’s tax revenue is earmarked for a specific purpose, leaving legislators very little flexibility to move money around and prioritize spending in lean years. The biggest earmark of all sends most of Alabama’s growth revenue streams flowing into a budget entirely devoted to education. Alabama is one of only three states in the nation with two separate budgets.

Gov. Bentley has in years past been a proponent of combining the budgets, but his current tax increase proposal does not include structural reforms to combine the budgets or un-earmark a significant amount of tax revenue.

The Governor’s ideas have not gained traction in the Republican-controlled legislature, where lawmakers have floated various proposals ranging from continued cuts to gambling expansions. Tax reform proposals have also been kicked around, but Bentley said the last thing the state needs to do is further cut taxes.

“People say we need to be cutting taxes,” he said. “I don’t know where you’re going to do it. We’re already 50th. Where else are you going to go? 51st? I guess you can be behind Guam, and they’re not even a state.”

If the legislature does not approve the Governor’s tax increase proposal during its current Regular Session, Bentley has said he will call them into as many Special Sessions as it takes.

“Now we’ve got four more years to solve this problem and I’m telling you if I have to have ten Special Sessions, we’re going to get it done,” he said last month.

(h/t Cullman Times)