KyKurmudgeon

Sunday’s column:

FRANKFORT — This and that as eastbound and westbound trains head for the inevitable pileup:

OK, maybe I’m too pessimistic. After all, the House is under new management, elected (barely in some instances) by Democrats frustrated over last year’s train wreck/meltdown/implosion/pick your own favorite catastrophic metaphor.

Surely, with new Speaker Greg Stumbo as their leader, House D’s will rally ’round their party’s governor (which they kind of failed to do last year) and finally stare down those mean Senate Republican bullies who have been pushing them around for, lo, these many years.

Yeah, right.

Following some closely contested leadership races that ultimately cost a few former committee chairmen their jobs, House D’s hardly qualify as poster children for unity.

They remain a severely fractured caucus that split 34-31, 34-31 and 33-32 in three of the leadership races. One of the 34-31 votes allowed Stumbo to take the gavel from former Speaker Jody Richards.

Under those circumstances, Stumbo could find Senate Republicans easier to deal with than his own caucus. And if House Democrats spend as much time and energy conspiring against each other as they did last year, another train wreck moves from the category of “possibility” to that of “probability.”

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For now, everyone is observing the formalities with a series of hearings on the impact of a projected $456 million revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year. These hearings give each side a chance to establish its position for the debate to come.

Democrats spread the gospel of raising new revenue as a means of avoiding a “scorched earth” destiny for various state agencies and services.

Where this gospel is concerned, Republicans play the role of skeptical agnostics who think the revenue situation for the current fiscal year may not be as grim as the projections (from the independent Consensus Forecasting Group) suggest.

Reality probably lies somewhere between the two extremes, although closer to the D gospel than the R agnosticism. There will be a significant revenue shortfall this fiscal year, and most likely a bigger shortfall next year. And dealing with those shortfalls without additional revenue will require severe cuts in some state services.

A couple of factors could prove problematic in resolving the issue.

Gov. Steve Beshear has a proposal on the table that includes a 70-cent increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes. Beshear’s plan would fill the hole in this year’s budget but does not address the larger shortfall everyone expects next year.

That presents a problem for some Democrats who are willing to take a political hit for doing the right thing, but don’t want to be subjected to a second hit next year, which just happens to be a legislative election year. If revenue must be raised, they prefer to raise it enough to handle next year’s shortfall as well.

However, if legislative Democrats try to up the cigarette tax ante with, say, Stumbo’s proposal to authorize slots at racetracks, Republican revenue agnostics almost surely will respond by accusing the Beshear administration of manufacturing a “crisis” to justify expanded gambling.

Right now, the best case scenario for more revenue looks like no more than half of the cigarette tax increase Beshear has proposed. To get even that, Democrats may have to give Senate President David Williams whatever he wants on road projects.

Such an outcome would allow Williams to walk away from his suit challenging Beshear’s veto of a road projects bill last year — a suit that, for the moment at least, has extended his losing streak in actions he has filed in his capacity as Senate president.

The worst case scenario is no new revenue and at least some scorched earth in state agencies.

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Beshear’s best hope for success in this session? Step aside and let Jody Meeks be interim governor. What University of Kentucky fan would deny him anything he asks?

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“I have full confidence in Adam Edelen, and he’s done a great job as chief of staff,” Beshear said Thursday.

Edelen, whose outside business activities have created the perception of a conflict of interest with his official duties, may want to start worrying now. Such votes of confidence have a way of coming back to haunt the parties involved.