Gov. Huckabee explains here why he vetoed that bill to fund a science specialist program. It’s going to be up for an override vote of the legislature later this week.
Huckabee is right on principle, but he’s wrong if the only option now is to sustain his veto and end or put a big question mark on a worthy program.
Huckabee is right in griping that this is yet another federal program on which the state inherits the cost now that federal money has run out. He’s right in saying it’s better funded out of general revenue or the huge state surplus. (He’s right in thinking, if he didn’t say it, that legislators are greedy hogs who are rubbing hands with glee at the thought of filling Bigelow potholes in 2007 with that growing surplus.)
But he’s wrong to suggest Higher Education scholarship funds, which will be used for interim support, are imperiled by the small appropriation. There’s a healthy surplus there for a temporary source of money. Let it be spent, but the legislature shouldn’t use funny money to perpetuate the program in 2007.