Category: Pennsylvania Budget

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Evidently You Can Make This Stuff Up: The Commonwealth Foundation (and the House GOP) on the State Budget

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget

Marc Stier | 08/24/2017 The Commonwealth Foundation, in recent op-eds and website posts, has presented a misleading analysis of the state budget, one that falsely claims that state spending has been increasing relative to the states’ economy. The opposite is true. Between Fiscal Year 2001 and the current fiscal year, General Fund spending has shrunk from 4.74% of state GDP to 4.25% of state GDP. The Commonwealth Foundation has also been misleading the public by claiming that state is hiding spending on a so-called “shadow budget.” 59% of what they call the shadow budget is not state spending paid for by taxes raised by the state but federal spending that flows through the state. Leaving aside this federal spending, all state spending, including but the General Fund and various special funds, has declined from 7.36% to 6.91% of state GDP between FY 2001 and FY 2018. Forthcoming proposals by the… Continue reading

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How to eliminate Pennsylvania’s budget deficit

  By Budget, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Public Policy, Taxation

Originally published by the Allentown Morning Call on July 31, 2017 Members of the General Assembly were recently sworn in to office only to face another budget crisis. Between an already existing structural deficit, higher-than-expected human services costs, yet-to-be-realized gaming license revenue and a general revenue shortfall, the combined deficit for this year and next in Pennsylvania is roughly $3 billion. Leaders of the General Assembly rightly oppose a substantial general tax increase to fix the deficit. A higher personal income or sales tax rate would make our tax system even more upside down than it is today. Pennsylvania taxes those with high incomes at a far lower proportion than those with low incomes. State and local taxes take 12 percent of the income of families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale, 10.3 percent of the income of the middle 20 percent of families, but only 4.2… Continue reading

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Budget Deal: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget

Marc Stier | 07/27/2017 Blog It’s time for Speaker of the House Mike Turzai to come back from his fundraising trip and call the Pennsylvania House of Representatives together and belatedly finish the Pennsylvania budget. A bipartisan majority in the Senate has passed a bill to fund the budget. While it is not perfect, if Speaker Turzai will allow it to come to the floor for a vote, it appears a similar bipartisan majority can pass it in the House as well, preferably with some amendments to it’s most problematic features. And, let there be no doubt, there are many problematic features in both the revenue package and the the companion bills passed by the Senate. But before we look at the problems, we should look at what has been achieved this year. The Republican leadership in the Senate has recognized something we have been saying all year: Pennsylvania has… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: On the State of PA Budget Negotiations

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Statements

Marc Stier, director of the PA Budget and Policy Center, made the following statement on the current state of PA budget negotiations: “If news reports are accurate, enough members of the House Republican caucus heard the voices of their constituents who contacted them in the last 24 hours to demand new recurring revenues to balance the budget in a responsible way. With the failure of Speaker Turzai’s irresponsible plan to borrow even more deeply to close the deficit, the way is open for Senate Democrats and Republicans to forge a bipartisan revenue proposal that raises taxes without burdening working people and the middle class. We are hopeful that when the House Republican leadership brings such a plan to the floor, it will secure a bipartisan majority there, as well. “This is a good day not only for the fiscal health of the Commonwealth but for the future of our democracy.” Continue reading

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Are the Republicans Ready to Gut Higher Education to Avoid a Severance Tax on Natural Gas Drilling?

  By Budget, Education, Higher Education, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget, Severance Tax, Taxation

As we enter the third week of an impasse over funding the 2017-2018 Pennsylvania state budget, an astonishing possibility has come into view: the House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike and Turzai and Majority Leader Dave Reed, appear to be prepared to block funding for the four state-related universities – Penn State, University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Lincoln University – rather than agree to the Governor’s demand that they raise $600 to $800 million in new recurring revenues. Governor Wolf and the Republican-led legislature have apparently agreed to a number of one-time revenue measures to close the budget deficit – proposals like borrowing from other funds or selling licenses for new gaming sites – that only bring in revenues in one year. But the Republicans, particularly in the House, appear unwilling to agree to Governor Wolf’s insistence that the fiscal health of the commonwealth requires new recurring tax revenues… Continue reading

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Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget

  By Budget, Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Taxation

Since 2010, Pennsylvania has consistently enacted budgets that, instead of being paid for by current revenues, borrow from the future. The general fund budget has been balanced by borrowing from other funds, shifting spending from one fiscal year to the next, and more. In this press memo, we outline a few revenue options with bipartisan support that could provide at least some of the long-term revenues needed to balance Pennsylvania’s budget. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: July 10, 2017 Re: Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget As legislative leadership and Governor Wolf look to wrap up the revenue portion of the 2017-18 state budget, the remaining negotiations is at least focused on the right subject: finding adequate and sustainable long-term revenues. Unfortunately, rather than work for new recurring revenues, Republican Leadership continues on the irresponsible… Continue reading

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S&P to PA: Snap Out of It

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget

Remember when, in the movie Moonstruck, the character played by Nicholas Cage tells the character played by Cher that he loves her. And she slaps him in the face and says, “Snap out of it?” Well that’s what the financial firm Standard and Poor’s just told the state of Pennsylvaniayesterday. They, once again, threatened to downgrade our bonds – forcing up the interest rates we pay – if we don’t get our fiscal house in order. They are telling our General Assembly to: Snap out of our reliance on one-year revenues, like licenses for gaming or liquor sales to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our willingness to move money from one fund to another to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our penchant for over-estimating revenues to “balance” our budget. Snap out of our tendency to shift spending from one year to another to “balance” our budget. And most… Continue reading

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First Look at the 2017-18 State Budget

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget

While we will need some time to analyze the details of the budget that the House and Senate will pass today, our preliminary view is that it is, as we had expected from the beginning of the year, an austere budget that does not really address the deep public investment deficit of the state, but it certainly could have been far worse. Given that the General Assembly seems utterly unwilling to raise revenues to meet public needs, negotiations by the leaders of the legislature and Governor Wolf have led to a budget that still takes some small steps forward. We caution, however, that we have only half of a budget so far. No plan has been passed to secure the revenues necessary to balance the budget. And, as we will point out later today in more detail, we are deeply troubled by reports that the deficit for the year that… Continue reading

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What Would an Adequate Pennsylvania Budget Look Like This Year?

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania Budget

What Would an Adequate Pennsylvania Budget Look Like This Year? A really good budget for Pennsylvania would begin addressing our long-term public investment deficit. It would provide new funds to: eliminate our worst-in-the-nation inequality in K-12 school funding; expand pre-K education to all three and four year-olds; make higher education more accessible, especially to students from low-income families; restore the funding that would allow the Department of Environment to better protect our air and water; provide new funding to repair roads and bridges and support public transit.   Continue reading

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Pennsylvania’s Budget Choices This Year

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Take political action

As we head into what everyone hopes will be the last month of the Pennsylvania budget season, this is a good moment to take stock of where we are and what’s at stake in the decisions the governor and General Assembly will make this year. Doing so will also explain why the Pennsylvania’s Choice campaign is urging people to attend a tele-town hall on the budget at 7:15 on June 1, a budget rally at noon on June 5 in Harrisburg, and lobbying days later in the month. (More information and registration for these events can be found here.) Continue reading