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Commonwealth Foundation President Matt Brouillette On Governor's Vetoes

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Matt Brouillette, President and CEO of Commonwealth Foundation spoke with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT midday host Dom Giordano about all of Governor Tom Wolf's vetoes of late.

"The Governor's campaign said I'm going to be a new kind of governor, and if you don't agree with my ideas come up with new ones. Well, the legislature came up with a new one after his proposal was soundly rejected and all he's been doing is vetoing things like liquor privatization, a no tax increase budget, and likely pension reform. So, he's been the equivalent of just saying no and either my way or the highway, but he's not giving us a real route to get this budget resolved."

 

 

Brouillette feels that pension reform for state employees has to be taken care of before much of the state sees the kind of economic downturn similar to what has been seen in Detroit of late.

"Look, this happened in the private sector decades ago simply because defined benefit plans are unaffordable. If you're worried about your school property taxes or other governmental services it is pensions that are consuming every new tax dollar that is coming into government and unless we resolve this issue—what happened in Detroit is not going to be the anomaly it's going to be the rule for what's happening not only across Pennsylvania, but every state of the union."

Seeing the slew of recent vetoes and with more on the horizon, he feels that any kind of government shutdown that may result from them will be solely blamed on Governor Wolf.

"This is where the battle is between whether we're going to increase taxes on every single Pennsylvanian out there or not. The legislature said, no we are not. The governor continues to demand this and really any negative impacts upon people as a result of government not operating is because Tom Wolf continues to demand more and more taxes out of our paychecks. That's the only way that we will see negative repercussions if he continues to say 'I want more of your hard earned money."

 

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