Pennsylvania Sets New Budget-Day Mark In Historic Gridlock
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania government will set a modern state record for gridlock when Gov. Tom Wolf sends lawmakers a new spending plan and warns them that they must fix the deficit and fully fund schools, or force schools to close and local taxes to increase.
Wolf's fight with lawmakers is now seven months deep into the current fiscal year, with billions of dollars for prisons, hospitals and schools in limbo and frustrated lawmakers unable to see a way to a compromise.
The first-term Democrat will deliver an approximately $32 billion plan to the Republican-controlled Legislature on Tuesday. The key to that plan, and resolving the fight over the current year's budget, is breaking down Republican resistance to a $1 billion-plus tax increase. That could prove especially difficult in an election year.
Wolf wants the money to close a long-term deficit that has damaged Pennsylvania's credit rating and to boost aid to public school systems that have among the nation's biggest gaps between wealthy and poor districts. However, Republicans, who have amassed their largest legislative majorities in decades, have their own list of policy objectives, and Wolf has had to juggle the competing priorities of House and Senate Republicans.
In all, it amounted to a year of historic partisan gridlock, with lawmakers warning repeatedly that Harrisburg is becoming like Washington, D.C.
The only other state with such budget gridlock is Illinois, where first-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is battling the Legislature's Democratic majorities.
In Monday statement, Wolf gave a preview of what he will tell lawmakers.
"We have a choice," Wolf wrote. "We must choose a path that funds our schools, eliminates our deficit, and puts Pennsylvania back on track. It is time for us to finish the job and restore Pennsylvanians' shaken faith in their government. It is time to fund our schools. It is time to face financial reality."
Failing to do so, Wolf warned, will require budget cuts.
"This path will lead us into a dismal future of shuttered schools, higher property taxes, and lower bond ratings that lead to higher borrowing costs for state and local governments," Wolf wrote. "The consequences of such action are grim. These consequences cannot be ignored."
Part of Wolf's objective has been to wipe out Republicans' deep, budget-balancing cuts in aid to schools in 2011-12, the brunt of which was borne by the state's poorest school districts. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's credit rating is in the nation's basement after its persistent deficit spurred five credit downgrades in the three years before Wolf took office.
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