By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: – The day after tomorrow begins the second season of the Hollywood sitcom, “Governing Pennsylvania.”
Once again we wonder if the politically inept, liberal Democrat governor Tom Wolf is equal to the rascally bunch of Republican legislators sworn to prevent tax increases at all costs.
Gov. Wolf boasts of the voter mandate he received at the polls in 2014 when he prevented Republican Gov. Tom Corbett from getting re-elected. Unfortunately, Republicans increased their membership in the legislature at the same election.
Each claims his/their mandate trumps the other.
Apparent winner during the first season (2015) is the Republican legislature. More than once the GOP leadership failed to keep compromise deals they had made with Gov. Wolf to settle budget issues. Even Republican legislative leadership was split.
Senate Republicans showed some concern to achieve compromises and keep the government functioning. Republican speaker of the House Mike Turzai, however, hopes to run for governor himself as early as 2018 and quietly supported his Tea Party members’ obstructionist stances.
Turzai’s goal is to make Gov. Wolf look bad (like Gov. Corbett?) and, thus, more vulnerable in 2018.
Gov. Wolf’s failure to learn political skills from his preceptor, former Gov. Ed Rendell, and his continued estrangement from his own party’s lawmakers benefit Turzai and the Republicans.
Tuesday Gov. Wolf presents his second annual budget to the legislature, this one a blueprint for 2016-17 fiscal year beginning July 1. The problem is that his first budget – for the current 2015-16 fiscal year – has never been agreed to, formally adopted or implemented.
Therefore, he has little basis for requests for various appropriations in his new budget. Are the amounts tacked on to the sums he failed to get for the current year? Based on how state tax dollars currently flow to school districts, higher education, social service agencies, etc., how are we to judge if these entities are entitled to more funds?
Other issues create large gaps in the state’s fiscal picture.
Polls show that state voters overwhelmingly favor a severance tax on the Marcellus Shale reservoir. Pennsylvania remains the only state in the nation with substantial reserves not being taxed. Republicans block the tax, continuing to remain bought by huge campaign contributions from industry businesses.
Lies perpetrated by the Corbett administration are just beginning to be exposed. The former Governor repeatedly asserted gas drilling through fracking was responsible for 250,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. Recently it was determined the industry accounts for less than 30,000 jobs. Yet unknown is the number of those jobs held by Keystone residents. Observers closer to actual drilling sites say most jobs were filled by transplants from other oil and gas states.
Recently we learned that the number of roads and bridges to be repaired by the new tax on gasoline of two years ago had also been exaggerated. Apparently an original list of projects — developed when the tax was first proposed — was never revised after the actual tax was scaled back.
Roughly half of the roads and bridges — taxpayers believe will be upgraded in the next 10 to 15 years — will see no improvements.
Speaking of transportation funding, the picture gets muddier. Turnpike tolls are undergoing annual increases with excesses subsidizing PennDot operations. PennDOT’s budget is being raided by state police. Police claim they are due these funds for patrolling highways but cannot point to a formula or method that determines how much is appropriate.
Wolf continues to assert that a major tax hike is necessary to improve the state’s credit rating and bring pension obligations more in line. This effort went nowhere in 2015.
Bottom Line: Gov. Wolf’s main goal for 2016 is simple to define but hard to accomplish. He needs a commitment from Republican legislative leaders they will put his proposals up for a vote. The Governor has to find enough voting members of the General Assembly who give a damn
Good article! Thanks for posting it