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Something of a political fight is being waged over the state’s $12 billion operating budget.
This is not unusual — there never is enough money to close the state’s open palms, and this is certainly the time of the year when state budget decisions are made.
Usually the combatants are the state House on one side and the state Senate on the other. This year, however, it is Gov. Neil Abercrombie versus the Legislature.
Abercrombie’s real antagonist, of course, is state Sen. David Ige, Ways and Means Committee chairman and the governor’s Democratic primary opponent.
The political cliché of a "thinly-veiled attack" is what Abercrombie launched on a Big Island campaign swing two weeks ago, slamming the Senate’s version of the budget.
"They don’t have preschool. Some of the people asking for your support right now are the people who have been fighting preschool education, finding other priorities," Abercrombie said in a video provided by Big Island Video News.
Still not naming names, Abercrombie went on to warn the crowd that there are sinister forces lurking in the Legislature.
"There are people who are going to come to you asking for your vote and they have never been to the Big Island, they have never been to Maui, they have never been to Molokai, they have never been to Kauai. They have been years in the Legislature and never showed the slightest intention of ever paying any attention to the neighbor islands," Abercrombie said.
Ige, in a response on his campaign Facebook page, put up his Senate floor speech urging passage of his version of the budget alongside Abercrombie’s budget bashing, saying, "You decide who to believe."
On the Big Island, Abercrombie could say that he was the cause for the state’s good economic times.
"Who has the record? We have done what we said we would do; we had straightened out that economy that was in deficit.
"As long as this administration is in office, we are going to be operating in the black and we are going to have our priorities straight," Abercrombie said.
Ige’s return was mostly a dry explanation of the budget woes that have befallen the state. The economy, he says, is not in good shape, we don’t have any extra money, there is no $840 million surplus and that is why he cut nearly $200 million from the budget.
"Your committee does not believe that the decrease of projected general fund tax revenues represents an economy in jeopardy … in general, the economy will continue to grow, but at a slower pace," Ige said in his committee report on the budget.
The full report is available online (http://goo.gl/Lv9L9t) but be warned: This is not to be read without a fresh pot of coffee beside you.
Before Ige can leave the state Capitol for full-scale campaigning, he must finish the work in the budget conference committee, which even in a relatively calm year such as this one, is always complicated.
The challenge for Ige is that running for governor is much more complex and perilous.
Columns of balanced numbers don’t equal columns of voters, so Ige still needs to dial up a campaign that appeals to voters, not accountants.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.