House GOP’s turn to solve Pennsylvania budget stalemate

Pension legislation favored by Senate Republicans stalled in the House, and it’s unclear whether they’ll hold up the budget for it. Majority Leader Dave Reed was not in attendance.

“Our whole mission there was to make sure that the general appropriations bill is sitting on the governor’s desk tomorrow, and we’re not there yet”. “We’ll be here awhile”.

Wolf is threatening to veto an 11-month emergency spending package being advanced by House Republican leaders.

A proposal to overhaul public pension benefits failed in the House, scoring less than half of the House Republican majority and zero Democratic votes.

Gov. Tom Wolf says he’s pleased, but that there’s still a ways to go after signs of a breakthrough in Pennsylvania’s budget stalemate emerged three days before Christmas.

Pennsylvania, an anomaly among states for its late budgets and long stalemates, is close to breaking its modern-day record – Wednesday, Dec. 23 – for a budget fight, set in 2003 by another first-year Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, and a Republican-controlled Legislature.

With the threat of closing schools in 2016 and a potential loss of social services due to the lack of state funding, anger at the failure of Harrisburg to get its work done appears to be rising. Domestic violence shelters are filled to capacity and home care services for the elderly in many counties are unable to take new enrollees.

School districts, contractors, nonprofits, and local governments that have been cut off from their state aid since July are exhausting their borrowing capacity or their ability to absorb the loss.

The state’s largest school system — Philadelphia — says it will close January 29 without state aid while several school districts have raised the idea of staying closed after the winter break to avoid having to borrow more money.

The Senate is signaling it won’t approve the plan, and Governor Wolf removed any shadow of a doubt about his intentions when he wrote to House members and told them a partial budget plan would be swiftly rejected if it landed on his desk.

But House Republicans revolted. Senate Republicans, however, have tied its passage to their support for increases in taxes and spending.

Regardless of whether the budget passes or not, the Legislature and Wolf are on the verge of history.

On Sunday, they offered no alternative or solution to opposition by the House Republicans.

Wolf said he is, “mystified” that there isn’t a budget yet.

Flying monkey No. 2: Wolf vetoed the Republican budget, prompting GOP leaders to wait almost a month before bringing out… “It does not restore funding to our schools, and it does not begin to fix our deficit”.

A state government with a heart, courage and a brain should be able to find a way to get such services funded on time, or at least well before the end of the calendar year.

“I’m optimistic”, said Rep. Joe Markosek (R-Allegheny) after the House’s preliminary budget vote. Moments later, the stopgap proposal was abandoned in favor of the full spending plan by a vote of 100-99. Tuesday’s last vote, 100-97, sent it onward to the possibility of a final floor vote Wednesday.

The House of Representatives defied Republican majority leaders Tuesday and narrowly sent a bipartisan spending bill over a key procedural hurdle.