{"id":20236,"date":"2017-11-15T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T03:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=20236"},"modified":"2017-11-15T20:17:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T03:17:28","slug":"gop-budget-bill-passes-over-democratic-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/11\/gop-budget-bill-passes-over-democratic-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP budget bill passes over Democratic protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_20237\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-20237 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Nancy-Ballance-copy.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"336\" height=\"265\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton, was the sponsor of House Bill 2.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>HELENA\u2014The House and Senate each passed a budget bill that incorporates Gov. Steve Bullock\u2019s reductions and earlier budget cuts triggered by lower than anticipated tax collections.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Over the protests of Democrats, the House passed House Bill 2 by a 59-41 party-line vote, with Republicans supporting it and Democrats voting against it.\u00a0In the Senate, the bill was approved on a mostly party-line vote.<\/p>\n<p>Bill sponsor Rep. Nancy Ballance, R-Hamilton, told the House that the bill puts into place the $75 million of Bullock\u2019s cuts, and $60 million cuts resulting from revenues that came in lower than projected. It is also linked to Ballance\u2019s HB6, that incorporates Bullock\u2019s $75 million in fund transfers.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats criticized the bill, saying it wasn\u2019t needed because Bullock already put the cuts into place on Tuesday, just as the House convened in special session.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe amendment to HB2 is unnecessary,\u201d said Rep. Kelly McCarthy, D-Billings.<\/p>\n<p>The revised bill would set a new budget base for the 2019 legislative session to consider, and which would be much lower, incorporating the temporary cuts Bullock made to address a $227 million budget and revenue shortfall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf revenues come in higher than anticipated, it doesn\u2019t give us an opportunity to put money (back) into programs,\u201d McCarthy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will become permanent in perpetuity, the new norm,\u201d said Rep. Mary Ann Dunwell, D-Helena, citing proposed cuts in the Revenue Department where she works.<\/p>\n<p>House Minority Leader Jenny Eck, D-Helena, said, \u201cThese cuts hurt people, and these cuts were made at the insistence of the other party.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Responded Ballance: \u201cThere\u2019s more than enough to blame to go around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said there are still other bills pending before the special session that could reduce the size of the reductions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot getting to a solution on Day One doesn\u2019t mean we walk away,\u201d she said. \u201cWe keep working on it.\u201d<div class=\"well\"><div class=\"dfad dfad_pos_1 dfad_first\" id=\"_ad_652\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/mjhWkW\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\" alt=\"CapreAir_Variable\" width=\"510\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18069\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HELENA\u2014The House and Senate each passed a budget bill that incorporates Gov. Steve Bullock\u2019s reductions and earlier budget cuts triggered by lower than anticipated tax collections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":20237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[1122,5376,6442],"class_list":["post-20236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-montana-legislature","tag-nancy-ballance","tag-special-session","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20236"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20240,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20236\/revisions\/20240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}