Gov. Wolf plans today veto of GOP short-term budget

Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative leaders met Monday afternoon and said they might meet again Monday night as Pennsylvania nears the end of its third month without a budget.

“I think we want a real budget and I think the only things standing between us and a real budget are the Republican leaders”, said Wolf.

Constituents responded to questions about Pennsylvania’s business climate, including employment and sales figures; state issues, including the budget impasse, education, liquor privatization and tax incentives; and the 2016 presidential race, for which answers closely replicated current national polls.

PA GOP Chairman Rob Gleason slammed the first-year governor for yet another budget veto and “applauded” Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and GOP House leaders for standing strong against “Governor No”.

Wolf wants a multibillion-dollar tax increase to wipe out Republican funding cuts for schools and human services and to eliminate a long-term budget deficit.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale says public school borrowing is in the hundreds of millions as officials search for ways to stay open through a three-month-old state government budget stalemate. The biggest borrower is the Philadelphia School District at $275 million.

Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed a short-term Pennsylvania funding package on Tuesday. The $11 billion proposal would cover government costs incurred between July 1 and November 1 and release billions in federal dollars. “Unfortunately, the governor refuses to see this emergency funding plan as an opportunity to keep money flowing to schools and social service agencies”.

It was a continuation of remarks the governor made on Pittsburgh’s KDKA-AM radio Tuesday morning.

“Throughout negotiations, I have tried hard to compromise, and recently, I offered historic reforms to the liquor and pension systems, two areas Republicans say are priorities, and in return, I have received nothing on education, a severance tax or fixing the deficit”.

With state aid stalled, schools, counties and nonprofit social services organizations are trying to scrape by. “There are many Republican members who don’t want to have Washington be imported into Harrisburg”.

Republican leaders have not agreed to a budget plan that includes any sort of tax increase.