Limbaugh was commenting on the Alabama tax vote yesterday, and he made a comment that Riley was an example of a Republican who gets into office and tries to buy votes by resorting to give-away programs. He was chiefly talking about the element of the Riley plan that would have provided scholarships to B-average and above students to attend Alabama colleges and universities. I must admit, even though it was a portion of the package that would have directly benefited me, it was not my favorite part of the package, and indeed, went against my fiscal-conservative leanings. Nevertheless there are two issues that Limbaugh utterly missed here.

The first is that in any legislative process (and the plan had to be legislatively approved by 60% of both houses of the state legislature before it could move on to the voters), one has to make deals. So there was give, and there was take. Since the perfect is the enemy of the good, I was willing to vote for a plan that was not perfect, but was far better than the alternative.

Second, and more significantly, Limbaugh’s political analysis of Riley’s electoral motivations are faulty. Indeed, by sticking his neck out on a bold plan that included tax increases (and it wasn’t just a tax increase package, but rather the most comprehensive reform package that the state has seen since the reform of the judiciary back in the 70s) he likely has committed political suicide. While he has time to reconstruct his political career, he is almost certainly going to have a struggle to get re-nominated in 2024. Riley supported this plan for a lot of reasons, but he knew full well it was a gamble, and by no means a way to curry easy favor with the voters.