Rendell Challenges House GOP July 3 2009
“If they think they can balance a budget without new taxes, let them show it to us,” he told reporters. “So far, the governor is the only one who has produced a balanced budget.”
Mr. Crawford claimed that GOP legislators “are taking the easy way out” by criticizing Mr. Rendell’s $28.8 billion budget plan for the fiscal year that started Wednesday. It’s balanced with a 16 percent increase in the personal income tax and several other new or higher taxes, along with some spending cuts.
Mr. Rendell doesn’t think it’s possible to produce a “balanced, responsible budget” that provides adequate state services without some higher taxes. His most controversial idea is boosting the income tax to 3.57 percent for the next three years. Even many Democratic lawmakers are having trouble supporting that idea, fearing constituent anger.
Mr. Crawford said that Senate Bill 850 — a $27.3 billion budget plan which the Republican-controlled Senate approved May 6 on a party-line vote — is now $1.5 billion out of balance because of a continuing dropoff in state tax revenues.
Republicans have said they won’t even consider hiking the income tax or other taxes, saying that’s the wrong thing to do in a recession. Mr. Crawford said then it’s up to Republicans to show how a budget can be balanced using only spending reductions.
Would the governor please define “responsible?” I’m guessing cutting fat is irresponsible in his mind.
In related news, the Commonwealth Foundation put their green visors on, and generated a budget spreadsheet for your to play with.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only place to get a spreadsheet of the proposed budgets – neither the administration nor the legislative caucuses have provided the info this way – and the only source for Rendell’s total spending proposal.
We had to estimate the ARRA appropriations in the Governor’s revised budget (the budget office promises to get the actual allocations to us, but not for another week). Users can download to see where the money is going – the file allows for collapsing line items by department and has hidden columns that break down ARRA vs. state sources of funds, but users can play around to check all of these.
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