"As a former state senator and chair of the Appropriations Committee, I am perplexed by the continuous discussion regarding our state’s “budget crisis.”
Let’s be clear. The situation in Nebraska right now is not a budget crisis. In my six years in the Legislature as chair of the Appropriations Committee, my colleagues and I navigated several historic budget crises. That’s not the situation we find ourselves in as a state today...
Fast forward to 2026. The pandemic is over. Nearly all of the individuals involved in the process of crafting LB 1107 have been term-limited and no longer serve in the Legislature. The Legislature has slowly chipped away at the package in the six years since, making the current landscape almost unrecognizable when compared to those original intentions. The guardrails are gone. The state has gone from feast to famine, blowing through a $1.9 billion surplus in 2023 to a $472 million deficit in 2026..."
Senator John Stinner is the previous Chair of the Legislature's Appropriations Committee.