Wolf: I’ll veto ‘stop-gap’ budget

Local ex-State Rep. says folks should look at changes in state government after deadlock

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times

Gov. Tom Wolf, seen here in a visit to Chester County earlier this year, said he would veto the so-called “stop-gap” budget the State House was considering Tuesday.

Although local state legislators had hoped that Gov. Tom Wolf would accept parts of an 11-month so-called “stop gap” budget, the governor said Tuesday he would veto in its entirety any stop-gap budget bill. Legislative sources had expressed hope that Wolf would line-item veto the budget, to allow funds for schools and social services to begin flowing.

In a letter to legislators Tuesday, Wolf made it clear he thinks the 11-month stop-gap budget is unacceptable.

“Let me be clear here,” Wolf wrote. “I will veto this bill if it reaches my desk.”

The state House of Representatives was continuing to work on such a budget Tuesday, with a potential passage on Wednesday. It was unclear whether the state Senate would be willing to take up the interim budget plan if passed by the house. The current budget impasse is on the verge of becoming the longest in state history.

Wolf said that such a budget would have dire consequences for the Commonwealth, including the immediate furlough of 8,000 state employees, a cut of $455 million in state funding to schools, about 12.5% of funding for local districts, $47.5 million in cuts to county social services, $100 million in cuts to Home and Community Services, and $8 million in cuts to vocational rehabilitation, leading, Wolf said, to a loss of $30 million in federal funding.

The stop gap budget would not require any tax increases, Republicans countered, and would allow further discussions without potentially forcing some school districts to close after the holiday break.

A Wolf veto — and likely not enough votes to override it — would leave legislators and the governor back to square one, without a lot of options to get a budget done before the Christmas holiday and potentially, the new year. A Saturday vote on a key pension reform provision failed — four of nine Chester County State Representatives voted against the measure — wrecking a tentative budget deal.

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. Here in Chester County, one former legislator is asking whether the time has come to dissolve the state government and start over, something she notes is a right reserved to the people of the state in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Barbara McIlivane Smith, a Democrat who represented the 156th District in the State House, said this week that people have a right to be frustrated and have a constitutional right to take action if they feel that the government has failed to do its job.

She quotes the state Constitution:

“All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think proper.”

With this latest debacle, Smith is suggesting that citizens should be asking whether it is time to start over.

“Since these guys can’t work together to get a budget done, it’s time we abolish the current government and start over,” she said.

While she allows what steps would have to be taken are unclear — although the people have the right to abolish the government in the constitution, there is no means or method spelled out — she said that folks have a right to frustrated and seek changes. A good start, she said, would be to put an end to gerrymandering, which some have argued have given Republicans undue control of the state, despite there being nearly a million more registered Democrats.

Smith applauded Wolf’s decision to veto the “stop-gap” budget, which she said represented a failure of the legislature to do its job.

“Wolf should absolutely veto it,” she said. “This is unacceptable for leadership to think that a stop-gap budget  — when the new budget will be presented in February, no less — will absolve them of their responsibilities. The only two things in the constitution for them to do is to provide a thorough and efficient education for students in Pennsylvania and pass a budget each year. They have not done either.”

She is a particularly critical of her former colleagues in the house, where she notes that not only the current budget issue was manufactured by house Republicans, but the entire pension mess was caused by majority GOP legislative votes in 2001 — and that the pension bill that was defeated Saturday would have excluded legislators from seeing their pensions changed.

“I want to know how many of those legislators who said they wouldn’t take their paychecks until the budget was done have taken them?” she said. “And the fact that they created a pension reform bill that completely excludes them! Excuse me, but they are part of the pension problem, especially since the Republican-controlled legislature created this mess in 2001.”