| House committee approves $100 million budget plan |
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| By Charles Guidry | |
| Friday, June 06 2008 | |
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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- A $110 million spending plan packed with projects pushed by the Jindal administration has been approved by the House budget committee. Yesterday's action came amid complaints from lawmakers that they had little say in the spending and no time to scrutinize the projects. Though an eight-page supplemental budget bill had been filed for weeks, 54 pages of changes totaling millions of dollars were made within minutes. The changes mainly were sought by Governor Bobby Jindal's financial advisers and his legislative allies. A handful of lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee say it's unfair to expect them to comb through the changes and vote on a multimillion dollar spending plan with little discussion of the specifics and no line-by-line review. Two New Orleans lawmakers had a sharp exchange with the committee chairman over the handling of the bill. Despite the complaints, the committee voted 17-4 for the spending, sending the budget bill to the full House for debate. Representative Jim Fannin, committee chairman, urged passage of the bill, citing the fewer than three weeks left before the legislative session must end. |
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