A Senior Rendell Administration ... ... official has, in effect, just double dog-dared Republicans in the House and the Senate to come up with a balanced budget plan that doesn't rely on a tax increase.
Making his inaugural trip to the Capitol press room, administration Chief of Staff Steve Crawford says that if GOP lawmakers in the state House can pull off that trick, then he'll encourage the chamber's Democratic majority to give it a serious look-see.
"If they can do a budget that balances without taxes, then show us what it is," Crawford said, his hips swaggering like The Man With No Name in a worsted wool blazer. "We will work night and day to consider that kind of a plan. We can't respond to a philosophy."
In case you'd forgotten -- or, more likely, wish you'd forgotten -- Gov. Ed is backing a $28.8 billion budget for FY 2009-10 that balances courtesy of a 16 percent state in the personal income tax.
Republicans, who'd sooner be locked in a broom closet with administration Policy Czar Donna Cooper than pass a tax increase, are backing a $27.3 billion plan that balances through a bunch of deep cuts to state government.
During his swing through the newsroom, Crawford essentially accused the GOP of being so addled with ideology that they are incapable of coming up with a compromise (which puts aside the argument that the administration is equally addled, but no matter).
"When the government is in distress, the party of out of power doesn't feel like it's their responsibility to make government work," said Crawford, who reiterated the by-now familiar contention that the Senate budget is $1.5 billion out of balance.
"I think that's at play here," Crawford, continued, adding that the Senate GOP has been great on ideology but less so on coming up with a compromise version of their Holy Grail -- SB850.
Meanwhile, out on the House floor this afternoon, disgruntled Republicans once again called on majority Democrats to spring a budget bill -- any bill -- from the Appropriations Committee so they can make with the voting on it.
During one of his now-daily rants from the rostrum, Rep. Mario Civera, the ranking Republican on Appropriations, said his caucus is preparing its own budget proposal that is so super-top secret that he couldn't offer any details on it. He also said it balances, but declined to say how.
In an interview after Crawford's drive-by, House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin similarly declined to elaborate on how the GOP intends to offer a budget that spends less than Rendell's and does that without raising any broad-based taxes.
"It is the job of the majority to bring a bill to the floor," Miskin said. When that happens, "We will have an amendment to keep government operating without a tax increase.
House Democrats are meeting in closed-door caucus again this afternoon for the ostensible purpose of completing a line-by-line review of SOMEONE'S budget request. Another session is schedueld for tomorrow. We are coming to believe that these meetings are actually intended to deprive rank-and-filers of food, water and access to sanitary facilities long enough for them to finally snap and vote for a PIT hike.
House Democratic spokesmanBrett Marcy also responded to a line the Republicans have been getting great mileage out of lately -- namely, that they're refusing to bring a budget bill to the floor because they're trying to manipulate the process.
"The House Democrats have been at the table for discussions," he said. "We've been looking at the very serious budgetary challenges that exist in Pennsylvania."
Rep. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming ... ... is at it again. He's trying to delay consideration of a bill until after the Legislature has passed an emergency funding bill to keep state government in operation.
There are 99 Democrats in the room, leaving them five bricks short of a load. There are 97 Republicans. This could get interesting.
Oops ... never mind. Everett just withdrew his motion. But he does want the House to pass an emergency funding bill when it comes back into session.
Well, At Least State Revenues Are Leaner This Year. Pennsylvania climbed two notches to claim the 22nd fattest spot in the nation in a new obesity ranking put out by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, our trim and fit colleague Veronica Torrejon reports this morning.
More than a quarter of all Pennsylvania adults -- 26.7 percent -- are considered obese in the rankings list, suggesting, perhaps, that the statewide affection for foods that are fried, made entirely from molasses, or otherwise manufactured from the dubious parts of a pig, may be misplaced.
Providing precious little consolation is the fact that Americans everywhere are taking up more real estate. Obesity rates in 23 states rose, and did not decline anywhere, Torrejon writes.
'Our future doesn't look very bright,'' Tina Amato, a nutrition and
physical activity manager in the Allentown Health Bureau's chronic
disease program, told Torrejon.
The rankings and the accompanying statistics don't provide data by county or metropolitan area. So that means it's impossible to tell whether, for instance, Pittsburghers are any more obese than Philadelphians, or whether denizens of Elk County are leaner than a Bucks County soccer mom.
Such disputes, we suppose, could be settled with a hot dog eating contest.
The rest of today's news starts, as always, after the jump.
And It's About As Grim ... ... as you'd have thought.
Pennsylvania collected $25.5 billion in tax receipts during fiscal 2008-2009. That's 11.3 percent below estimate, and it leaves the state with a new-and-improved deficit of $3.25 billion, according to Revenue Department data made public this afternoon.
Here's a further breakdown:
Sales Taxes:$675.6 million for June, which was $67.6 million below estimate.
Sales tax collections for 08-09 were $8.1 billion, which is $595.3
million, or 6.8 percent, less than anticipated.
Personal Income Tax Collections:PIT collections for 08-09 were $10.2 billion, which is $1.3
billion, or 11.2 percent, below estimate. And they want to raise the rate?
Corporate Taxes: $4.8 billion in 08-09, which is $613.9 million,
or 11.3 percent, below estimate.
Other Tax Revenues: Inheritance Tax: $772.2 million for 08-09,
which
is $105 million below
estimate; Realty Transfer Tax collections were $294.5 million
for the fiscal year, which
is $117 million less
than anticipate; Cigarette, Malt Beverage and Liquor taxes were $1.1 billion, or $26.2 million below estimate.
And you know things are bad when people are drinking less to forget their troubles.
Oh sure, the West Coast has the sunshine and, as the Beach
Boys famously noted, the girls all get so tanned.
But Golden State Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t have much
time for the waves this summer as he seeks lawmakers’ assistance to close a
staggering $24 billion budget deficit.
For some perspective – that’s about eight times larger than
Pennsylvania’s $3.2 billion deficit. And California’s total budget hole itself
is nearly the same size as the budget proposals backed by Gov. Ed and state
Senate Republicans.
Rendell’s proposed budget is roughly $28.8 billion; Senate
Republicans want to spend $27.3 billion in 2009-2010. Both sides said this week
that they do not expect a speedy resolution to the seventh budget deadlock in
as many years.
So as Pennsylvania
lawmakers and Rendell struggle to reach agreement on a new state budget, they
may take some comfort from knowing that they’re hardly alone in their misery.
Legislatures in Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio
all closed the books on the 2008-2009 budget year without approving new
spending plans to replace their old ones.
We Issue A Heartfelt ... ... welcome back to state Rep. Bob Belfanti, D-Northumberland, who has returned to the state House after nearly succumbing to a serious case of pneumonia earlier this year.
This is, of course, wonderful news. And it's good to see Mr. Belfanti back in action.
On the other hand, if we never hear a sitting House member discuss zippers and urinating ever, ever, ever again, that'll be just fine too ...
That'd Be State Rep. Garth Everett ... ... a Republican from Lycoming County, who's appointed himself as a one-man wrecking crew. The two-termer from Charley Hall just tried to convince his colleagues to table HB422 (sponsored by Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Northampton), arguing that the chamber should be doing nothing else but working on budget stuff.
Moreover, we understand he's threatened to make a habit out of it.
"All we should be doing is confining ourselves to budget-related bills," Everett said on the House floor. "I came here with 50 members to change the way we do business. We should not be doing this [the budget] behind closed doors."
Points for effort, but, with four Democrats absent, Everett's motion failed on a 97-99 vote. The underlying bill was approved, by the way.
Ohh ... scratch that. it's 97-100. Rep. Curtis Thomas, D-Philadelphia, stood up and announced that his "button malfunctioned' and he should have been recorded in the negative. This is universal Harrisburg code for "someone in leadership yelled at me about my vote and made me change it."
Hysterical side note: Rep. Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery, just popped up and asked House Speaker Keith McCall to call for the Geek Squad to check for "any more malfunctioning buttons."
Good Morning, Fellow Seekers. As is often the case here at Capitol Ideas World HQ, we're a little pressed for time this morning. An appointment with our personal physicians at the practice of A.E.I.O.U & Sometimes Y beckons, so we'll dispense with the usual preamble and just dive right into the usual mix of gossip, half-truths and outright fabrications that you've come to expect from us.
The Horror, The Horror Dept. The sparring over whether Pennsylvania State Police troopers might be laid off as a result of this summer's budget impasse continued yesterday in a state Senate panel, our friends at Capitolwire report this morning. Appearing before the Senate Law & Justice Committee, state police officials said the layoffs that the Rendell administration says "would happen" only "may happen" under a Senate-approved budget plan. This apparently has something to do with the funding formula that underpins Gov. Ed's assertions about the prospect of lay-offs at the PSP. We're a little fuzzy on how it works, but the short form is that lawmakers and the administration could basically change the formula to make sure that layoffs don't happen. But our favorite part about this whole story is that the state police official who testified before the committee yesterday was named Lt. Col. Kurtz. And we've been waiting nearly five years to drop a Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness reference in this 'blog. Mission accomplished.
As Promised ... ... we return with a field report from the Senate Republican press conference on the state of the budget.
If you weren't there, here's your handy, clip-and-save guide to what happened.
1. As they've been since budget negotiations began sometime during the Pinchot administration, Republicans say they're perfectly willing to compromise with the administration to reach an agreement on a new state budget, just so long as that budget is less than this year's, does not include any tax increases, and is stamped in big, black letters that read, "SENATE BILL 850." "On each tax, there's a line of argument and debate that you can get into," said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, who didn't seem interested in getting into any argument or debate about taxes that doesn't include not having them. "Each of these taxes are a tiny fraction of the deficit."
2. Senate Republicans are big fans of open and transparent budget talks that take place in the clear light of day, and not in smoke-filled backrooms. "The old days of negotiating tax increases behind closed doors are over," said Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie, R-Allegheny, shortly before Senate GOP leaders left ... to meet behind closed doors at the Governor's Mansion.
3. More good news on when this might be over: "I wouldn't be surprised if this goes into August," Pileggi said.
4. Instead of going to PSECU or Citizens Bank for loans, soon-to-be penniless state workers might want to consider hitting up their pals on legislative staff for a few bucks. The Senate GOP, at least, intends to tap its surplus funds so that it can continue paying staffers working 14 or 15 hour days on the budget. "Our belief is that when people work, they should be paid," Pileggi said.
5. And, no, they still have no interest in raising the personal income tax, not even a little bit. Not even by a quarter of a point. And targeted tax increases? Oh please ... like $100 million is gonna make a difference when they're a billion-seven apart.
6. One of the differences between last year's budget debate and this year's budget debate? "It's a lot quieter with Vince [Fumo] not there," Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said, not missing a beat. Actually, he kids. Apparently, there's tons of respect between the four caucus negotiating teams, and "as long as we have that respect for each other, it's keeping the dialogue open," Scarnati said.
5. Finally, today is June 30, which means the Senate GOP has just hit the statutory cap on reminding us that they passed a budget back in May, and that it was in balance, and that it didn't include any tax increases, and that it was responsible; and that once Dominic Pileggi had to keep himself warm at night by setting his law books on fire; and that Jane Orie had to walk up hill to school, both ways, on The Incline, in the middle of February ... OK ... we get it. You passed your budget. Now pass a real one so we can all get out of here.
A Central Pennsylvania Clergyman ... ... is crying foul over a state House policy requiring guest chaplains to keep their words nondenominational if they're invited offer the prayer that opens each day's legislative session.
Gerry Stoltzfoos, the pastor of Freedom Valley Worship Center in Adams County, balked at opening the House's June 23 session after he was told he'd have to submit his prayer for advance approval and couldn't invoke Jesus' name in his remarks. He'd been invited to give the prayer by a hometown lawmaker, Rep. Will Tallman, R-Adams.
The House has had a longstanding policy of keeping prayers non-denominational. House Speaker Keith McCall, D-Carbon, whose office controls the order of business in the chamber, imposed the pre-approval rule about three months ago, McCall's chief-of-staff, Paul Parsells, said.
The rule is intended to reflect the House's religious diversity -- the ranks of its 203 members include practicing members of the Jewish faith, for instance -- and to head off any complaints about religious favoritism. The state Senate has a similar requirement. It asks guest chaplains to "please be mindful of the religious diversity of the members of our chamber," when they compose their invocation.
But that's not the way Stoltzfoos sess it.
"First of all, I don't see how Jesus is nondenominational," Stoltzfoos told the York Daily Record newspaper in a June 25 story. "The whole Christian world is called after him. I just feel, like, if you want me to pray to the one thing I know. I only know one God personally. I only serve one God. How do I do something that dishonors him?"
This fascinating budget season time-killer comes to us courtesy of Keystone Progress, a left-leaning organization run by former Green Party candidate Mike Morrill of Reading and the good folks at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center.
Hey ... you sank our Transfer to Municipalities Financial Recovering Revolving Fund!
We're Just Back ... ... from Gov. Ed's press conference unveiling low- and no-interest loans for tens of thousands of state employees who will go without paychecks in mid-July if there's no budget agreement reached by midnight tonight.
So here's what you need to know:
1. There will be no budget agreement by midnight tonight. There won't be one this week. And there probably won't be one next week either. Rendell's chief of staff, Steve Crawford, gives 50-50 odds for an accord by the end of the week. Then again, there are similar odds for a batter trying to hit a baseball -- and you know how often that works out.
2. If we hear "The numbers will drive the process" one more time, we swear we're gonna scream. What else is going to drive the process? It's a budget, for goodness sake. It's a big book full of numbers. If the numbers don't drive it, we don't know what will.
3. The budget talks that began at the Mansion last night will continue this evening. Rendell says the administration and lawmakers got about halfway through the budget's 700-odd line items last night. We understand they may revisit some education items tonight, potentially prolonging the review process.
4. The administration still says it's challenging the Republicans to come up with a way to balance SB850, which is $1.5 billion out of balance. They say the GOP can't do it without looking for revenue enhancements, which is a fancy way of saying "tax increase."
5. The administration's official position is still that the state is facing a revenue problem, not a spending problem, and that all its current woes can be traced back to evil Wall Streeters. While we do not lightly dismiss the idea that Wall Streeters might, in fact, be evil, we also cannot help but point out that the administration was warned a year ago that revenues were going to start going south. Yet, it insists upon its spending initiatives anyway. This is somewhat akin to Little Miss Capitol Ideas eating her entire Dora the Explorer popsicle even after we warn her that it'll give her a tummy-ache. However, we have found that our four-year-old accepts our counsel far more often than state government.
The Senate GOP is doing its floor show at 3:30 p.m. We'll be back with an update then.
Good Morning, Fellow Seekers. If it's Tuesday morning, it must be time for another Capitol Ideas Coffee Contest.
The usual ground rules apply, the first person to correctly identify the source material for the title of this morning's post gets a cup of Joe from the Starbuck's stand in the Capitol Cafeteria. Off-campus winners get a voucher redeemable upon their next trip to Harrisburg.
Congratulations to last week's co-winners: Mandy Fleisher of PSEA and Gwenn Dando of NFIB-PA. Mandy was the first to correctly respond, but donated her coffee so that someone else might get a caffeine fix. And as we enter another endless budget slog, that's the kind of compromise we'd like to see more often.
Also, thanks to those of you who honked as we staked out Casa de Rendell during budget negotiations last night. A particular thanks to that plucy reader who actually took us up on our joking entreaty to bring Diet Pepsi to the stake-out. You know who you are.
All right. There's plenty going on. So let's get to it. The rest of today's news starts after the jump.
We'll Be Camping Out ... ... at the executive manse this evening as Gov. Ed and state lawmakers do what's been described to us as a "line-by-line" comparison on the state budget. Check our Twitter feed for live updates. There may even be pictures.
If you're driving up Second Street, honk and say hi. And bring Diet Pepsi. Lots of Diet Pepsi.
Here's A Look ... ... at what Gov. Ed's proposed budget looks like now that he's unveiled his $500 million in proposed reductions. Some of the cuts are deeper than those proposed by the Senate in SB850 . But the spending plan also keeps programs (like Keystone Innovation Zones) that the Senate budget tosses overboard.
Another edition of "Politics As Usual" is in the books. And maybe it's the caffeine and the anticipation of the all-nighters yet to come, but this week finds the PAU crew in a jauntier mood than usual. Here's what you can expect in this week's edition:
D-Day Minus One: It's the day before the night before. In this year's state budget fight, who are the winners and losers?
The July Surprise: In which the PAU crew takes bets on which side issue will inevitably rear its head to throw a spanner into budget negotiations. Film Tax Credit, anyone?
Cap & Fail: Coal County Democrats in PA break ranks with the White House and vote against a key piece of environmental legislation. Is that the kind of change you can believe in?
Strap On Your Water Wings: The PAU crew takes a dip in the shallow end of the celebrity death pool. Don't download this part until at least a half-hour after you've eaten.
You know the drill, click the download link below to join John L. Micek of The Morning Call, Alex Roarty of PoliticsPA and Scott Detrow of Public Radio Capitol News as they take on these and other issues on "Politics as Usual."
Good Morning, Fellow Seekers. Welcome to the day before the day before.
There's just two days to go before the state closes the books on the 2008-2009 fiscal year. And as we write this morning from the comfort of Capitol Ideas World Headquarters, there's no reason to believe that we're any closer to a budget deal than we were on Friday when the Rendellies released their $500 million list of painful budget cuts that were mostly offset by a $400 million increase in mandated spending increases.
This was followed by the usual rhetorical jousting from Republicans, leaving us, on Friday, with the strange feeling that we've seen this movie before. And we could spend our entire post this morning running down the list of all the places where the administration and the Legislature are deadlocked.
But thankfully, our pal Pete DeCoursey over at Capitolwire has already done the intellectual heavy lifting for us. He's come up with a list of at least 14 points that will have to be resolved before the the administration and lawmakers reach a budget deal.
In a story that's so password-protected it'll singe your eyebrows if you even look at it, DeCoursey includes such obvious areas of disagreement as the proposal to hike the personal income tax and the ongoing debate over how much the state can actually spend in 2009-2010 (For the record, that's $28.8 billion for Rendell and $27.3 billion for the GOP).
There's also some more subtle wrinkles, including whether the usually vertebrae-free Senate Democrats will be willing to put up a tax vote, and whether Gov. Ed will have to roll break some Senate Republicans to make up the difference (Don't worry, SePa Republicans, we know a dry cleaner who can get those tire-tracks out of your suits ...).
But we'd add one more bit to DeCoursey's list that we didn't see. And that's all the side issues (table games, health care reform, movie tax credits and the stuff we don't know about yet) that always gets rolled into the budget debate.
Mark our words, sometime between now and the final deal, at least one of those issues -- plus one unknown variable -- will get thrown on the table like an ice hockey octopus, gumming up the works and delaying an agreement.
And, in the words of the late Peter Sellers, it's all just a part of life's rich pageant. The rest of today's news, meanwhile, starts after the jump.
_ Gov. Ed Rendell this morning unveiled $500 million in proposed spending cuts
to his 2009-2010 budget that would leave virtually no area of state government
untouched.
From welfare programs to museums, and from job-training
programs for the unemployed to money for state parks, the Democratic governor
either reduced or eliminated funding for scores of state programs as he seeks
to close a gaping state budget deficit and make up for stagnating state
revenues.
“There is not a thing in here that doesn’t hurt,” Rendell
told reporters at a news conference. “There are virtually no good cuts.”
The administration says the cuts would affect 80 percent of
the line items included in the 2008-2009 state budget that was signed into law
last July.
Among the highlights: a 13 percent reduction to the
so-called “state-related” universities – Penn State, the University of
Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln Universities; $45 million in reductions to
grants issued by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency; $22
million in funding for the final leg of the state’s “Classrooms of the Future”
program, and $7.5 million in cuts to state support to public libraries.
“There is nothing there that I like here in the slightest,”
the governor said.
Rendell and state lawmakers have until midnight on Tuesday
to come to an agreement on a new spending plan for the fiscal year that begins
on July 1. Both sides have acknowledged that they’re going to overshoot the
deadline, and now appear focused on avoiding a prolonged stalemate.
It was not immediately clear exactly how much Rendell had
reduced his proposed $28.9 billion dollar budget. The balance sheet provided to
reporters did not include a revised bottom line.
Legislative Republicans continue to support a $27.3 billion
budget plan that say cuts spending while avoiding the need for any broad-based
tax increases.
Rendell has claimed that the plan is $1 billion out of
balance, and that the state cannot meet its constitutional obligation to pass a
balanced spending without hiking
Pennsylvania
’s
3.07 percent personal income tax to 3.57 percent for three years, raising $4.5
billion.
Rendell reiterated that position today, saying that, while
he remains open to compromise, “I’m not a stupid guy. I would not have tried to
hold the line on a broad-based tax increased if I believed it was inevitable.
The figures don’t lie.”
Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Sam
Smith, R-Jefferson, called on Rendell to come clean about how much he actually
plans to spend in the coming budget year.
“He’s proposing cuts to money that doesn’t exist,” Miskin
said. “He has not fully answered what his final budget number will be.”
Rendell also announced this morning that the state was
submitting its application to
Washington
for so-called “State Fiscal Stabilization” money included in the federal
Stimulus bill. The state is eligible for $953 million in funding.
Rendell wants to use 18 percent of the money to meet general
budget obligations, including $173 million in mandated costs at the state
Department of Corrections.
Of the rest: $418 million would be funneled into the state’s
school funding formula; $77 million would b used to restore proposed cuts at
the state System of Higher Education, community colleges and the Thaddeus
Stevens School of Technology, and $258 million would be pay for one-time grants
that school districts could use to close budget holes or in one-time
investments in technology.
Inside Harrisburg - insight and perspective from The Morning Call's state house reporter John L. Micek.
