School districts are borrowing money to stay open and local human service agencies are cutting services to stay afloat as the stalemate continues without a bipartisan budget deal.
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“I think we’re spending more than we need to spend”, said Representative Eli Evankovich (R-Westmoreland/Allegheny).
With projector, clicker and bullet points, Governor Wolf played math professor, showing slides that he says prove the Republican budget just doesn’t add up. “I’m very concerned”, Wolf said.
He said broad-based tax hikes are needed now to make up for years of what he called dishonest budgeting on top of inadequate funding of schools. Wolf said that plan’s use of one-time stopgaps would have deepened the deficit.
“When the people of Pennsylvania know exactly what the governor is asking for in his taxes, when they know what his spending plan is all about, the people of Pennsylvania will help resolve this budget impasse”, Evankovich said with a sly grin, that seemed to suggest there’s no way broad-based taxes are getting through a Republican-dominated legislature.
“I don’t believe that for a minute”, he said. Wolf would “be there in a second” if he thought he could formulate a budget plan that wipes out the deficit without an increase in sales or income taxes, Wolf said.
“I don’t see how you get there without a broad-based tax increase”, Wolf said.
In separate interviews, Lehigh County Democratic Reps.
But he took them through a PowerPoint presentation of one-time revenues in last year’s budget and spending increases the state is required to make this year and next year in areas such as human services and pensions. “This is a once-in-a-generation vote”.
The need to find new revenue should not surprise public officials.
The Corbett administration was not successful in advancing its priorities through the legislature, Zogby said Monday in an interview. “It would be even more wonderful if it were honest”, Wolf then retorted. He said it’s due on Tuesday afternoon and will be voted Wednesday in the House.
During the briefing, Wolf methodically outlined the state’s growing mandated spending, which he said has created a structural deficit of at least $2.3 billion – and that’s before the additional spending the governor wants for education and other programs. That budget did not raise taxes and closed the bulk of the state’s deficit by making internal transfers and delaying bills.
Republican plans to privatize the state-controlled wine and liquor system and cut public-sector pension benefits will produce only relatively small savings, Wolf said, and leave about $2 billion in cuts next year.
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House and Senate GOP leaders say they won’t lobby against Wolf’s plan and will give him a fair shot to pass it. Gov. Wolf is looking to increase personal income tax and impose a gas on Marcellus Shale for natural gas extraction in order to increase education funding and property tax relief.
