State government: July 2009 Archives

We're on the verge of concluding a whole month without a new state budget. Honestly, I never thought it would come to this.

Even if members of the state legislature reached a compromise this afternoon (not that there's any indication they will), 77,000 state workers won't get a paycheck tomorrow.

It's a hazardous situation, beyond any short-term problems it may cause.

The last time something like this happened, in 1991, a provision got inserted into the state budget that stopped basing education funding on the number of students in a district. Nobody seems to know who came up with this provision, or what he or she meant to accomplish. Given the atmosphere of crisis that prevaied at the time, trying to figure that out is like trying to investigate a single act of vandalism in the middle of a riot.

Nobody even noticed it at the time. Lawmakers became aware of it years down the line, when its cumulative effect caused some major funding problems for growing areas such as York County.

York County lawmakers played a major role in getting their colleagues from other affected areas to band together and eliminate the provision. But it took more than a decade for that to happen.

Let's hope that whatever version of the budget holds no similar unpleasant surprises.

OK, so I got this idea. I wanted to see if the transcript of a Pennsylvania House of Representatives Finance Committee hearing would be more interesting if read by the cast of York Little Theatre's "Rocky Horror Show" -- in character and in costume.

The results were ... well, see for yourself. All I have to add is: Do yourself a favor and SEE THIS SHOW! The folks putting it on are just amazing! I had a blast making this video.

For more information, go to here.

This afternoon, I got something from my confidential informant -- aka: my man on the street, Huggy Bear.

It's an e-mail exchange that took place between state Rep. Seth Grove, R-Dover Township, and a guy from Philadelphia (who I guess I won't name, seeing as he's not a public official).

I gave Grove a call this afternoon, and he confirmed that the exchange took place. He said, in efect -- hey, there's no legal prohibition on paying more taxes if you really want to.

Whether it was a valid response, or whether you share the Philadelphia guy's viewpoint that it was unduly snarky, I'm reproducing it here for the following reasons:

1) It went out to a big list of recipients (more on that in a second), so I don't feel it's tantamount to invading anybody's privacy.

2) I find testy e-mail exchanges to be entertaining. Don't you? Oh c'mon! Fess up!

This is one I made over the weekend. You know, sorry-looking sock puppets have been a sorely underutilized tool for political commentary ... until now!

Remember that budget standoff?

Well, it's still going on. Here's a statement that state Rep. Dan Moul, R-Conewago Township, released today.

"An attempt by House Republican leaders to position Senate Bill 850 for a vote this week was blocked in a party-line vote, dashing the hopes of thousands of state employees whol will be facing payless paydays after this week. Many of those employees live in my legislative district and are already experiencing pay losses.

"Republican leaders had planned to amend Senate Bill 850 and bring it to a vote by Friday. It was the only option we had to get this budget done this week to avoid further harm to the families of state employees. We didn't get the cooperation we needed from House Democrats and it didn't happen. This was preventable, and it's a shame that all of those families will now have to suffer."

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I genuinely figured that we'd have a new state budget by the time the July 4th weekend was over.

I don't know about you folks, but I'm starting to get a little cold sweat going.

Basically, it comes down to a standoff between the Republicans who dominate the Senate, and Gov. Ed Rendell and his fellow Democrats who dominate the House.

It's interesting, in a queasy kind of way, to speculate about who has the most to lose. On the one hand, the Republicans probably wouldn't mind seeing Rendell get the blame for a budget crisis, in light of next year's gubernatorial race. Whoever ends up as the GOP candidate could argue that things didn't go so well under the last Democratic administration.

On the other hand, it could easily backfire. I gotta hand it to Pennsylvania's Republicans -- they hold their government representatives accountable. The GOP in Harrisburg took a bigger hit than the Democrats in the wake of that pay raise flap a few years back, losing their majority status in the House and barely hanging onto it in the Senate.

Could be that they just can't afford to risk ticking off their base with an extended budget standoff right now.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long. Here's an Associated Press story about it:

HARRISBURG, Pa.--State budget negotiations that include Gov. Ed Rendell are scheduled to resume in Harrisburg, nearly a week after Pennsylvania's fiscal year began without a deal in place.

A spokesman for Rendell said the governor plans to attend a meeting for legislative leaders scheduled to begin late Monday afternoon.

Rendell and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly are pushing for a mixture of spending cuts and new revenue sources, while Republican leaders oppose higher taxes.

There were no signs of progress after two lengthy sessions at the executive residence last week.

The pay of many state workers will be held up, starting on July 17, until there's a resolution.

The national economic downturn led to a revenue shortfall of nearly $3.3 billion for the year that just ended.

The big budget dispute is getting all of the attention up Harrisburg way. But lawmakers have a lot of down time while the caucus leaders are negotiating, and this time of year is typically when they pass a lot of legislation before summer recess.

By the way, "summer recess" isn't as galling as it sounds. It just means they're in their district offices instead of Harrisburg.

Anyway, here's a news release regarding from legislation from state Sen. Mike Waugh, R-Shrewsbury, who represents most of York County.