Lawmakers: PA state budget resolution unlikely before public schools in GOP districts run out of cash
Pennsylvania’s budget standoff, now entering its fourth month, is unlikely to be resolved until public school districts in Republican strongholds begin to run out of cash.
That’s the consensus of several Democratic lawmakers I spoke with last week.
Although we’re told daily that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is meeting with Republican leaders to resolve the impasse, not much is happening.
Old-time lawmakers point to the political inexperience of newcomers in the Republican caucus, and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, as contributing factors in this year’s lingering standoff.
But the problems run deeper than inexperience, and auger difficult budget negotiations in coming years.
The political standoff in Harrisburg in many respects mirrors the political stalemate in our nation’s capitol. As happened in Congress, a fresh crop of GOP Tea Party-friendly lawmakers came to Harrisburg in 2010. Right-wing hardliners are now gumming up the Pennsylvania legislature, much the same as in Washington.
These neophyte Republicans in Harrisburg don’t believe in political compromise, and prefer ideological standoffs to deal making, Democrat lawmakers complain.
“And they’re nasty,” one lawmaker tells me. “We never locked them out when we were in the majority, like they’re locking us out now.”
But Tea Party Republicans’ inexperience and antipathy to political compromise is only part of the problem.
In retrospect, Gov. Wolf’s first-year budget plan was simply too ambitious. It’s also obvious that Wolf asked for too many tax hikes from the Republican-controlled legislature.
Gov. Wolf, a former revenue secretary in the Rendell administration, understands the importance of raising adequate revenue. Revenue shortfalls crippled past administrations, Wolf knows all too well.
Yet if Wolf’s budget proposal had simply stuck to raising sales and income taxes, and a severance tax on shale gas drillers, it would have been difficult enough to cut a deal with Republicans.
But Gov. Wolf also proposed several big-ticket reforms: property tax and pension overhauls, and state liquor store modernizations.
These opened the door for major philosophical battles with legislative Republicans, on top of the tax hike disagreement, exacerbating the political standoff.
It’s apparent now that Democrat Gov. Wolf proposed a budget that could only have been approved if his party controlled both houses of the legislature, when just the opposite is true.
The math is overwhelmingly against Wolf’s party. Democrats are in the minority 20 vs 30 in the state senate. In the General Assembly the head count is just as bad, if not worse: Democrats hold only 84 seats, to the Republicans’ 119.
In the 203-seat lower body, 102 votes are needed to pass a bill. Holding only 84 seats, the Democrats need 18 Republican votes to pass anything.
Did Gov. Wolf really expect to pass tax increases on top of his politically thorny, philosophical hot-button proposals involving property tax, pension and liquor store overhauls?
It starts to look like any one of these three big issues — property tax, pension and liquor reforms — would be lofty goals to achieve in a single four-year term.
To get any one of these initiatives through this Republican-controlled legislature in Wolf’s freshman year, with a minority legislature, seems all but impossible, and a daffy pipe dream.
Simply put, Tom Wolf doesn’t seem to have the political skills or experience to pull it off. And perhaps no one could, if Republicans simply are adverse to a deal, or compromise.
One Democratic legislator told me that neophyte Republican legislators have to understand that Gov. Wolf’s executive administration is a co-equal to the legislature. Meaning, the Republicans don’t even respect Wolf’s veto pen, which is all the Democrats have going for them at the moment.
Several Democrat lawmakers suggested it was time for Gov. Wolf to get tough with Republicans.
There remain hold-ever Republican appointees in deputy administration posts, particularly in the Western part of the state, who should be shown the door, one Democrat suggests.
“Wolf should be telling them, ‘If you don’t pass this budget I’m going to kill that project in your district!'”
Wolf has been too nice, the lawmaker added. “No other governor has been so nice to the opposition. Brought them in time and again. Brought them up to the mansion. Brought them into his office. What does that get us with these guys?”
Gov. Wolf’s reluctance to resort to patronage rewards and disincentives further marks him as politically naive, and unskilled, particularly in Harrisburg, which runs on patronage.
No one’s going to cut a deal in Harrisburg based on principle, old-timers know.
“Short of giving every legislator $5 million in WAMs (walking around money), I don’t think Wolf can do much to get these guys to the table,” one state rep says, only half joking.
So what’s the end game?
It’s not principles, but bare-knuckle political realities from their own base that will probably bring the Republicans to the table and end the stand off, Democrats I spoke with predict.
“It’d be great if Philadelphia schools ran out of money,” one Democrat says. “Then all the parents in Philadelphia will get hopping mad and flood the polls this November and vote all our guys on to the state Supreme Court!”
The problem with that hope, I countered, was that the election was only a month a way, and Philadelphia schools probably won’t be thrown into much turmoil by then. Besides, Philadelphia schools ran out of money forty years ago, and most people in the state don’t care about urban, minority-filled schools.
As I write, the state auditor general reports that 28 school districts are expected to borrow $122 million in October to keep their doors open. That’s on top of $346 million borrowed by 17 districts in October, running up almost $12 million in interest payments.
But those schools are mostly poor, inner-city schools.
So, what will it take to end the budget standoff?
Once school districts in outlying Republican districts — read suburban, rural and white — begin to run out of money, we’ll see Republican lawmakers pressured to come to the table for a deal, Democrats hope.
Under-funded public schools certainly contributed to the reelection loss of Tom Corbett, Wolf’s predecessor.
Gov. Wolf’s support for public schools is genuine, and heart felt, and not merely a political ploy. On the other hand, most Democrats suspect the Republicans are really out to destroy and shutter public schools.
Even so, one Democratic state rep asked me bluntly, “Where is the political support for Tom Wolf? Here you have a governor who really cares about public schools, and is going to the mat for them. So why isn’t PSEA (Pennsylvania State Education Association) out at the capitol protesting every day for him? Where is PSEA?”
This too points to Gov. Wolf’s lack of political skill, even if he does exhibit daring-do.
Very insightful report Bill.