House GOP’s Interim Budget Plan Draws Governor’s Veto Threat

The House GOP is charging ahead anyway, positioning an 11-month interim budget for a final vote this week before the Christmas holiday.

Along with Illinois, Pennsylvania is one of just two states still fighting over a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Wolf maintains that he has enough support in the House to pass a $1 billion-plus tax increase he wants to boost aid to public schools and human services.

The pared-down spending bill emerged Wednesday when it became clear that an eleventh-hour effort to revive the Senate GOP’s legislation to restructure public pension benefits had stalled in the House.

Numerous questions remain, including the fate of legislation to authorize hundreds of millions of dollars for universities and colleges.

In Pennsylvania, the $30.8 billion budget backed by Gov. Wolf was passed by the Republican-controlled state Senate two weeks ago.

“In the budget that passed the Senate, pain was shared and progress was shared on investments in our businesses, communities and schools”, Yudichak said.

A temporary rule adopted by the House on Tuesday allowed the bill to advance with a simple majority vote, instead of the usual required sum of 102 votes.

“It is deeply disappointing that today the Senate has caved to those same House leaders and extreme interests to continue the failed status quo and harm our schools and children by denying them these critical additional funds”, Wolf said in a statement on Wednesday. “The governor reached a five-party agreement on a full-year budget that makes historic investments in our schools, and everyone needs to get back to work to get this done now”.

Smith applauded Wolf’s decision to veto the “stop-gap” budget, which she said represented a failure of the legislature to do its job. Talks about a wider bipartisan budget deal fizzled Wednesday but could continue, and the impasse has now stretched to a record 177 days – and counting.

Gov. Tom Wolf warned state House members Tuesday that a stopgap budget under consideration would prompt 8,000 workers to go on furlough and deep cuts to government programs.

This budget spends over $3.5 billion less than the Governor originally wanted (in his original March proposal) and $600 million less than what had been on the table (from November’s framework agreement). But the pension bill has been a challenge, and when it went up for a vote in the House last weekend it was voted down overwhelmingly.

“It is the only way to get a budget to the governor’s desk that he could sign”, said Majority Leader Jake Corman.

He sent a letter to all state representatives in which he vowed to veto a temporary spending measure, calling it a retreat from a budget deal he negotiated with legislative leaders.

That way, if Wolf line-item vetoed the Legislature, he would also line-item veto himself, Evankovich said.

“Do I think he’s bluffing?” The legislation would create a mandatory 401(k)-style benefit for future state government and public school hires.