Post by Logan on Jan 25, 2016 14:46:43 GMT -6
Amid all the loud talk in Harrisburg about passing a budget, including a tea-party Republican's blabbering about placing a boot on Gov. Wolf's neck and Wolf's calling a proposed GOP budget "garbage," there has been a strange silence about a necessary ingredient to any spending plan - how to pay for it.
The public has heard next to nothing about generating the revenue needed to cover expenses since efforts to hike the sales tax evaporated weeks ago. No one has floated a tax bill with bipartisan support. And as the state's April 26 primary election looms ever closer, it's becoming doubtful that anyone will.
With a $2 billion deficit, a declining credit rating, and many services already cut to untenable levels, a tax increase seems unavoidable. Legislators trying to ignore that reality are only making a bad situation even worse.
Wolf and leaders in the House and Senate reached a fragile compromise in November that they hoped would end the stalemate over the now historically late budget, but it failed to win passage. Bills introduced since then have not shown how to provide the extra money promised to schools or fix the state's structural deficit.
Continued at www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160125_Legislative_cowardice.html .
The public has heard next to nothing about generating the revenue needed to cover expenses since efforts to hike the sales tax evaporated weeks ago. No one has floated a tax bill with bipartisan support. And as the state's April 26 primary election looms ever closer, it's becoming doubtful that anyone will.
With a $2 billion deficit, a declining credit rating, and many services already cut to untenable levels, a tax increase seems unavoidable. Legislators trying to ignore that reality are only making a bad situation even worse.
Wolf and leaders in the House and Senate reached a fragile compromise in November that they hoped would end the stalemate over the now historically late budget, but it failed to win passage. Bills introduced since then have not shown how to provide the extra money promised to schools or fix the state's structural deficit.
Continued at www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160125_Legislative_cowardice.html .