By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: What do Tom Wolf and Bruce Rauner have in common?
Both are chief executive officers of the last two states (Pennsylvania and Illinois) without an operating budget. Both are businessmen worth considerably more than ordinary folks, Rauner through equity investing (shades of Mitt Romney!) and Wolf via a family owned business.
Both take no salary, pension or benefits from their government posts.
Rauner is Harvard-educated; Wolf got his smarts at nearby MIT. Both are political newcomers.
Neither ever held another state or Federal political office before becoming governor in January of this year. Unlike the private sector, they will accomplish little without compromise. Neither sees the difference.
Both are nose-to-nose with rival political machines to determine who is going to run state government.
Throw in pension reforms and the similarities end there.
Rauner, 58, is a Republican refusing to budge on signing legislation that would restore tax levies expired this year and affecting over a quarter of Illinois’s $80-billion plus scheduled expenditures. He will trade his approval if the overwhelming Democrat legislature will agree to curb the power of public unions.
Rauner once preached Illinois should actually lower its minimum wage to attract more business. He also seeks cooperation for pension reform, as his state is more underfunded than any other.
Wolf, 66, denied GOP Governor Tom Corbett a second term when Corbett, even with substantial majorities of his own party in control of both chambers of the legislature, failed to deliver most of his agenda. Corbett was tight-fisted on state funding for education and human services.
Now Wolf wants large tax increases that would restore funding to prior levels over his term, citing an estimated $5 billion deficit.
The Republican legislature actually increased its margins in the 2014 elections but Wolf handily defeated Corbett. Both sides now claim they are operating with “voter mandates.”
To add insult to Wolf’s agenda, Republicans want him to cooperate in privatizing state liquor sales and institute pension reform, matters Corbett failed on even when he had the votes.
Who is going to blink first and when?
Illinois officials, out of necessity, should settle first. That state is closer to insolvency because of the way finances are structured and constitutional requirements. Health care premiums for state workers and retirees are going unpaid. Rauner is even stiffing lottery winners.
Illinois’s budget (about $85 billion) is nearly three times the size of Pennsylvania’s (a bit over $30 billion) because the Midwestern state provides more services and underwrites more of the costs of local programs and public education. Pensions appear more lucrative in Illinois, also.
When PA lawmakers rushed “their” version of a 2015-16 state budget to Wolf’s desk on June 30 and he promptly vetoed it, the stage was set for a likely compromise.
Likely to everyone but Wolf and the Democratic leaders in the legislature.
The stage should have been set then for a third version budget, developed and presented by the Democrat state lawmakers. This rendition would have reflected how much of a new tax package the most conservative Dem members would swallow. Moderate Republican lawmakers might have signed on.
Republicans held fast on no new (or maybe very little) tax increases and Wolf countered with offers he knew would not be acceptable to Republicans. For example, Wolf offered to sell state liquor stores but new owners must keep all state employees.
Finally, the Republicans cobbled together most of Wolf’s offers into a meaningless third version of the budget. Every Republican House member voted against this bill, along with nine Democrats, adding to Wolf’s humiliation.
Most of this drama played out in the House. Who knows what will happen if a likeable version 4, 5 or later goes over to the Senate? The GOP upped its margin from 27-23 to 30-20 in last year’s election, and then kicked out their majority leader because he had been a compromiser.
Bottom Line: How long will Wolf dance for the unions? Published polls report even a majority of Democrat voters prefer the conveniences and prices likely in a private liquor system.
Wolf’s lack of political prowess appeared to be countered when he populated his Cabinet and top staff with servants of former Gov. Ed Rendell, known for his wheeling and dealing. There is no evidence such balance of personal skills are in play.
