DN Editorial: Wolf's at the door, but GOP pols won't answer

PENNSYLVANIA government is in deep financial trouble and could be facing a $1 billion-plus deficit next year.

That is not rhetoric left over from this year's election campaign. It is the judgment of three professional, nonpartisan rating firms that evaluate and rate state and local finances.

When Fitch, Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service speak, Wall Street listens. All three lowered Pennsylvania's rating this year, which means that taxpayers will pay higher interest on the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds floated each year by the state.

Fitch Ratings was the latest to join the chorus in late September. But the reasons given by all three are the same: The state hasn't done anything to solve a long-term deficit in state employee pension funds and, just as important, its expenses still outpace its revenues.

The Legislature and Gov. Corbett avoided facing a deficit this year through various tricks of the trade, including raids on special funds set up to help small businesses and volunteer fire companies, to name two.

According to Fitch, about $2 billion of this year's $29 billion state budget relies on one-time revenue sources. Once spent, that money is gone.

It gives you an idea of the financial woes that will face Gov.-elect Tom Wolf, the Democrat who beat Corbett by 10 percentage points on Nov. 4.

Adding to his problems is a Republican-controlled Legislature, many of whose members have taken the Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge and intend to live up to it.

On Election Day, Corbett was one of the few exceptions to the Republican surge that happened here and across the country.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans picked up three seats in the state Senate, and will have a 30-20 majority come January. In the state House, Republicans gained eight seats and will have a 119-84 majority in the 2015-16 session.

You can't deny state Rep. Mike Turzei his bragging rights. Turzei, a western Pennsylvania Republican who is about to become the next House speaker, held a news conference last week where he said - in no uncertain terms - that his caucus is dead set against taxes, including a tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas that even some Republican legislators embraced last year. As to Wolf's idea of raising the state income tax, forget about it.

Wolf favors a 5 percent tax on gas extracted from the deep wells, which could bring in $500 million now and perhaps more in the years ahead. He also favors imposing higher income taxes on wealthier residents, though has given no specifics.

It's one thing to declare yourself the "No Tax Increase" party in November, when you are feeling your oats after electoral victory.

It's another thing to hold that stand in the spring, when the Legislature has to consider the governor's proposed budget.

If the Republicans are so dead set against taxes, they should also take on the responsibility of deciding what needs to be cut in order to balance the budget. Is the "No Tax" party about to become the party that cuts state aid to basic and higher education? Is it the party willing to reduce the budgets of social-welfare programs?

Some Republican legislators would be happy to answer yes to both those questions.

We hope there are enough members in the party who are willing to get past the slogans and join the movement to set the state's finances back on the right track.