Despite a Wednesday deadline, Pennsylvania is still without a budget. The State House and Senate have agreed to a $31.6 billion spending plan, but Gov.Tom Wolf has refused to sign it without an accompanying revenue plan.
John Baer, political columnist for Philadelphia Daily News, said the nine-month delay in reaching a budget agreement last year looms heavily over the proceedings.
“This is going to get done sooner than later,” Baer said. “Nobody wants to remind voters of the last budget struggle.”
Baer said the hang-ups amount to some odds and ends that need tending to before both parties can reach an agreement. Still, he said the budget reflects short-term political thinking.
“Anybody with any sense will recognize this budget as an election year budget,” Baer said. “All of the original objections of the Wolf administration and the governor since he took office are now out the window.”
The governor has compromised by allowing one-time deals and questionable revenue producers. He’s also set aside concerns about the deficit reaching crisis levels.
“Don’t be surprised if by February, we hear Gov. Wolf again say, ‘we need to increase broad-based taxes,’” Baer said.
John Micek, opinion page editor for Penn Live and the Patriot News, said the current scramble for revenue is a direct result of Wolf taking broad-based taxes off the table several weeks ago .
“They’re going to upend the couch cushions and shake out the pockets of all the trousers in the capital trying to find the change necessary to make this thing achieve constitutional balance,” Micek said.
Baer said issues like property taxes, public pensions and minimum wage have also disappeared from the conversation.
“All of these things seem to vanish when it becomes politically expedient to get (the budget) done,” Baer said.
Both Micek and Baer predicted Wolf will sign the budget sometime next week.
More EP Archives can be heard here.
