{"id":158663,"date":"2025-10-10T19:08:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158663"},"modified":"2026-09-19T18:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T22:54:01","slug":"the-seinfeld-shutdown-in-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158663","title":{"rendered":"The Seinfeld Shutdown in PA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center<\/a> on October 10, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

October 10, 2025<\/p>\n

by Marc Stier<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania state budget is now 13 weeks\u2014a quarter of the year\u2014late.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s not clear what\u2019s causing the delay. And frankly it appears to be about almost nothing but petty political disputes mostly coming from the Republicans\u2014so we’re calling it the \u201cSeinfeld Shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

A short budget delay is not that serious. State laws and court decisions keep most state offices open even if a budget has not been passed. That reduces the pressure on legislators to pass a budget.<\/p>\n

But a budget delayed for a quarter of the year is now harming schools, social services agencies, and county governments that have been waiting for state payments. Many have taken out loans that will add to greater state spending to reimburse them for interest payments.<\/p>\n

The impasse is the result of both partisan and intra-party politics.<\/p>\n

The Democratic governor and House of Representatives and Republican Senate have vastly different priorities. But this alone wouldn\u2019t delay the budget. Governor Shapiro and the House Democrats have repeatedly sought a fair compromise.<\/p>\n

Governor Shapiro\u2019s budget was fairly austere to begin with, especially considering our recent period of inflation. The budget called for dramatic increases in only two areas, public transit and K\u201312 education, where the state is under a court mandate to fix the inadequate and inequitable way we fund our schools.<\/p>\n

It appears that there is a rough deal on K\u201312 spending apart from the details of how to fix the absurd overpayment of cyber-charter schools. When it comes to transit, the Governor and the Democrats have made a significant\u2014and in my view, problematic\u2014compromise on funding that raids capital funds that will have to be repaid while not solving the long-term problem. The Governor has been supporting an increase in the minimum wage and legalization of adult-use cannabis, both of which would raise revenues. But we don\u2019t have much hope that either will be part of a final budget.<\/p>\n

And it appears that Democrats have tentatively agreed to a General Fund budget with a Walmart-style price tag: $49.99 billion, which is $1.45 billion less than what Governor Shapiro proposed in February. (The budget the House passed last week would spend just a little more.)<\/p>\n

Democrats have compromised, but the Republican Senate does not seem willing to say \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why not? Frankly, Republicans aren\u2019t giving much in the way of reasons. We\u2019re told they are making a variety of demands with regard to vouchers or the regional greenhouse gas initiative (RGGI) that Democrats will not and should not accept. With only control of one house of the General Assembly and a Democratic governor, Republicans know\u2013or should know\u2013that they don\u2019t have the leverage to ask for Democratic support for these proposals. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It seems that the real problem is that the Senate is divided between right-wingers who want to make our government work and extremists who would like to drastically shrink state government\u2014far beyond what other legislators and the public at large will accept. The extremists keep saying the budget is too large. But, as usual, they don\u2019t have any recommendations for cutting it. And they won\u2019t be specific because they know that their constituents would reject their ideas.<\/p>\n

Some Republican Senate leaders almost seem ready to support a deal with the Democrats. But they aren\u2019t willing to put their own leadership positions at risk by bringing a bill to the floor that cannot win the support of most Senate Republicans.<\/p>\n

And some Republicans seem determined to embarrass Governor Shapiro by delaying the budget.<\/p>\n

In other words, the state budget is being held hostage by Senate Republican leaders who are, in turn, being held hostage by partisanship and their most extreme members.<\/p>\n

And then in the last few weeks, Republicans have started to claim that the state has a structural deficit and that Governor Shapiro is calling for higher taxes.<\/p>\n

To be frank, their claim about the structural deficit is true. But it does not justify holding this year\u2019s budget hostage.<\/p>\n

In the last two fiscal years, the state has spent more than the revenue it\u2019s raised. The budget has been balanced by drawing down the accumulated surplus from federal COVID relief.<\/p>\n

At the current rate at which Pennsylvania spends more than it takes in, the state will face a very serious shortfall the fiscal year after next, in fiscal 2027\u201328. The deficit that year and beyond could reach $3\u2013$4 billion per year. If one takes seriously our constitutional responsibility to fully and fairly fund Pennsylvania\u2019s schools, as well as the impact of federal cutbacks, the yearly deficit could reach $7 billion.<\/p>\n

The coming fiscal crisis is serious and should be addressed by our political leaders. But neither party has done so. Democrats in the House and Governor\u2019s Office avoid conversations about it, rightly pointing out that with $10 billion in the bank, the problem is not immediate. Republicans warn about it but are hypocritical in doing so: They have voted for budgets with a structural deficit two years in a row and will eventually do so again, this year. And despite the threat of a fiscal crisis, last year they proposed cutting state revenues by $2.6 billion per year.<\/p>\n

We should all demand that both Democrats and Republicans produce plans to address the coming fiscal crisis prior to the November 2026 election. Then the public can choose one plan or the other.<\/p>\n

Our view is that a state that already underfunds most public services, in addition to K\u201312 education, can\u2019t cut its way to a balanced budget. It must increase tax revenues. In a state where the top 1% pays taxes at half the rate of the bottom 20%, and multinational corporations pay nothing, it is time to ask well-off Pennsylvanians and wealthy corporations to pay their fair share.<\/p>\n

But a quarter of the way through the budget year is not the time to be having this deeper conversation. With so many Pennsylvanians suffering right now, it\u2019s time for the Republican Senate to say \u201cyes\u201d to this year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

 <\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 10, 2025. October 10, 2025 by Marc Stier The Pennsylvania state budget is now 13 weeks\u2014a quarter of the year\u2014late. Yet it\u2019s not clear what\u2019s causing the delay. And frankly it appears to be about almost nothing but petty political disputes mostly coming from the Republicans\u2014so we’re calling it the \u201cSeinfeld Shutdown.\u201d A short budget delay is not that serious. State laws and court decisions keep most state offices open even if a budget has not been passed. That reduces the pressure on legislators to pass a budget. But a budget delayed for a quarter of the year is now harming schools, social services agencies, and county governments that have been waiting for state payments. Many have taken out loans that will add to greater state spending to reimburse them for interest payments. The impasse is the result of both partisan and\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":158662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291,217,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-post","category-my-work","category-penn-policy-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-Fh5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ManHoldingBlankPage.jpg?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158703,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158663\/revisions\/158703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/158662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}