By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: – -Republican controlled Pennsylvania legislature has won another budget battle. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf is now half-way through his term with little to show.
Wolf defeated Republican Tom Corbett when voters decided that Corbett did not deserve a second term. In the Republican’s case, even with both chambers of the General Assembly in solid control of his own Party, Corbett failed to score any decisive wins. His Republican counterparts in other northeastern industrial states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey were exciting their electorate while he was a “dud.”.
Wolf spent $10 million of his own money to buy a primary win. He ran separate of the Democrat ticket in November after his feeble attempt to take control of the Party failed. He won big, but so did Republican legislators. They took advantage of a very lopsided gerrymandering of district boundaries.
Wolf attempted to convince lawmakers that the voters had given him a mandate to restore better funding for public education. A small, but controlling minority of Republican legislators claimed their mandate from their voters was to resist raising taxes.
Corbett’s reign transitioned to Wolf but the legislature remained the same. The faceless group of Tea Party Republicans were so influential they could block GOP attempts to compromise. “Moderate” became a forbidden word in Republican circles.
The fault for Pennsylvania’s pension financial predicament, however, began with two preceding governors. Republican Tom Ridge escalated the state’s hurry into financial insolvency for its two huge pension funds. Some years he and his successor, Democrat Ed Rendell literally put zero money into the funds, claiming market growth eliminated the need. Ridge did it to keep his promise that he would not raise taxes. Rendell was forced by an ever-conservative legislature to do the same.
Pennsylvania has one of the highest pension imbalances in the nation, all because of irresponsible actions of past governors and lawmakers. The private sector is beginning to dislike a pension benefit still retained for government jobs, even though state employees and teachers still kick in six percent or more.
Nevertheless, Republican legislative leadership promised to not pass a budget without pension reform. They voted for the most recent budget, “mumbling” they would fix the pension after their summer vacation.
When Wolf abandoned his demands for more money for public education, both sides claimed this was the “compromise” voters wanted.
So once again, we have a state government operating budget patched together with monies borrowed from the doctors’ malpractice fund and higher and new taxes on new sins. In exchange for a tax increase on casino profits, lawmakers promised a bill in the fall that would expand gambling, perhaps even include internet games.
Both the Governor and lawmakers touted the budget because this year’s education funding boost goes through a new student weighted formula. This means the money is supposedly going back to school districts that need it most.
Actually only six percent ($352 million) of the total public education appropriation ($5.8 billion) passed through this process.
Over in higher education, the two sides agreed on a $10 million increase in appropriations with a request that tuition not be hiked. The higher education system board instead moved to increase yearly tuition rates another $212.
Voters in districts that did not receive special appropriations in the budget are never told of their existence. Voters in districts that did receive extra money are told to give credit to their lawmakers and re-elect them.
This year, grab-bag winners appeared to be topped by York County school districts. Wolf is a resident of York County and throughout his campaign and reign as Governor told of the struggles his home area has in paying for quality schools.
Both sides promised future actions on charter school revisions. Wolf and a number of Democrats not looking for contributions from charter school operators hope to amend the law to eliminate compliance advantages by the private schools. GOP lawmakers want to earn their political contributions by making it easier and more profitable to provide private public education.
That doesn’t sound like an easy compromise.
Bottom Line Another typical year in Pennsylvania government.
