This was originally how I was going to start this post ...
"Members of the state Senate, where Republicans have a majority, are going to try to override Gov. Ed Rendell's earlier vetoes to get parts of the state budget passed."
Yeah, that's an accurate and concise description of what's going to happen. But I wouldn't blame anyone for reading it and saying " What the ... huh?"
Short explanation: The budget for the new fiscal year still isn't passed seven weeks after it was due, because of an impasse between the Democrats and Republicans in Harrisburg over state spending.
But all the underlying parliamentary moves and countermoves might be kind of confusing by now. Let's see if I can translate this into some approximation of coherent English.
Rendell, a Democrat, and the Republicans who control the state Senate have different ideas about what the state budget should be. That's nothing new. But because of the recession and next year's elections, the stakes are higher than usual.
Basically, Rendell's plan is $29 billion with some tax increases, and the Republicans' plan is $27 billion with no taxes but deeper cuts.
According to the Pennsylvania Constitution, the governor, the House and the Senate all have to agree on a budget proposal before it can pass into law. And neither Rendell nor the Senate Republicans are budging right now.
The need to pay state workers seemed to create a deadline that would force one side or the other to relent. Without a state budget, there's no way for about 77,000 state workers to get their salaries.
And they actually did miss one of their paychecks a couple of weeks back. Then Rendell pulled a move that solved the state worker problem without solving the budget impasse -- or relieving pressure on the Republicans.
He signed off on the Republicans' $27 billion budget. Then he used the veto power of his office to cut just about every part of the budget except the workers' salaries.
Need an image? Think of that scene in the 1970 film "Five Easy Pieces" where Jack Nicholson is trying to order toast from an uncooperative waitress. He orders a chicken salad sandwich on toast -- hold the lettuce, hold the butter, hold the mayonnaise ... and hold the chicken.
That's essentially what Rendell did. He said "OK, I'll take the Republican spending plan, hold everything except the state salaries."
Now the Republicans are going to try to override his vetoes, and get some of their spending proposals restored.
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