Wolf: Time for 'truth' about state finances
HARRISBURG - Gov. Wolf on Monday called the legislature's planned vote this week on his budget - one that includes tax increases to boost education funding - "a once in a generation vote."
HARRISBURG - Gov. Wolf on Monday called the legislature's planned vote this week on his budget - one that includes tax increases to boost education funding - "a once in a generation vote."
Legislators who vote Wednesday "don't want to be on the wrong side of history," Wolf told reporters during an invitation-only news conference at his residence. "We can't afford Republicans and Democrats - we need Pennsylvanians. We need people . . . who are looking beyond narrow partisanship."
The unusual campaign-style pitch was an opening salvo in a week that could reshape or define the impasse. Ninety-seven days after a state budget was due, and after multiple negotiating sessions, the first-term Democratic governor and the Republicans who control the House and Senate have signaled no agreement on even the barest outlines of a deal.
GOP leaders, frustrated by the stalemate, said last week that they will bring to a vote Wolf's $30 billion proposal, if only to show the administration that it has no support.
Republicans turned to the tactic because they said they are tired of hearing the governor say he believes he has support among rank-and-file members for his budget proposals, which have included raising personal income and sales taxes to finance property-tax relief and bring in more money for schools.
It was unclear Monday precisely which spending plan will get a vote. The administration said it would release details Tuesday. The House is scheduled to vote Wednesday.
Wolf told reporters that the budgets approved in the last few years by the GOP-controlled legislature have not been "honest," relying heavily on one-time revenue sources and putting off expenditures in order to balance the books.
New revenue, Wolf said, is a must going forward. Without it, he said, the state is likely to again be facing a $2 billion shortfall for the 2016-17 fiscal year - and public school funding will have to be slashed.
"I'm trying to lay out the truth," he said, later adding, "It's not about ideology, it's about math."
Wolf has proposed raising the sales and income taxes and using a large portion of that money for a statewide property-tax reduction plan.
But House Majority Leader Dave Reed (R., Indiana) said last week that there was no support among legislators for raising broad-based taxes - such as the personal income tax - unless every dollar raised is dedicated to reducing property taxes.
Neither Wolf nor legislative Democrats would say Monday if they believed they had the votes to pass his budget - although the governor spent the last week calling legislators.
Democrats control 84 seats in the House; Wolf would need all of them, as well as nearly two dozen Republicans, to pass his plan.
Asked if he was offering Republicans a political sweetener - such as money for projects in their communities - to persuade them, Wolf said, "Not so far."
He then added: "Although I've got to say, I will be a lot more sympathetic - if decisions have to come - to people who have seen Pennsylvania's needs and requirements more honestly than those who don't."
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