Taxpayers hand over $89M daily while state fumbles budget plan

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – Since July 1, taxpayers have given the state roughly $89 million each day, even as months have passed without any of it going into the programs it's meant to support.

It’s a crude figure calculated by dividing the state’s $10.1 billion in revenue collected since the official start of the commonwealth’s “new” fiscal year by 113 – the exact number of days Pennsylvania has operated without any spending plan for all of that money in its checking account.

It’s not for lack of trying. Both chambers of the General Assembly have repeatedly approved budgets that have appealed only to their partisan interests, with narratives on negotiation differing wildly.

What is certain is that the Republican majority Senate OK’d a $47.9 billion plan on Tuesday that cut nearly $3 billion in education and health care spending the Democratic majority House wanted.

The lower chamber sent the pricier proposal to the Senate earlier this month in what Republican leadership panned as a political stunt, not a good-faith effort to bargain.

Why?

Because they say there’s not enough money to cover it all without dipping into a $7 billion emergency savings account not meant for yearly expenses. Draining it, plus $3 billion held in surplus, will risk steep program cuts and tax increases akin to $2,000 per family.

And it’s a strategy Republicans note that Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, supports.

“One day and one vote,” said Majority Leader Joe Pittman, a Republican from Indiana. “That’s all we need from House Democrats to end this Shapiro shutdown ... Maybe it would be helpful if the governor engaged in this in a real meaningful way and not travel all over the state taking pot shots at so many members of this Republican caucus.”

The governor said while visiting Pittsburgh on Tuesday that the party has to "stop playing games." 

"I mean it’s a joke," he said. "It doesn’t actually meet the obligations of this commonwealth. It’s a gimmick and it's not designed to be serious or get the job done."

Senate Democrats reiterated their House colleagues’ message on the chamber floor: the latest “unserious” plan cuts funding because costs rise annually, and there’s a legal mandate to keep the money flowing at pace.

“That majority will try to say they’ve done something,” said Sen. Vince Hughes, a Democrat from Philadelphia. “But the truth is, this does nothing.”

It does nothing because the House, when it returns to session on Monday, is unlikely to consider it. Nor will they approve a Republican-backed plan to loosen the treasurer’s lending requirements to give counties zero-interest loans to weather the impasse.

In the meantime, money from paychecks, sales, and businesses flows into state coffers, and will continue to do so, no matter how long a deal takes.