Pa. budget facing two paths

YOU KNOW THE Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken," about two roads diverged in a wood?

Well, that's exactly where Pennsylvania's needlessly long budget battle between Democratic Gov. Wolf and the Republican Legislature stands - at a point of divergent paths.

One path leads to a budget resolution as early as Thanksgiving; the other to political conflagration ending who knows when.

"We are definitely getting closer," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Adolph tells me.

House GOP Leader Dave Reed's memo to members on Friday (a great example of pol-speak) says, "We are making progress towards the framework of what could lead to a final budget compromise."

A "framework" that "could lead to" . . . sigh.

Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan says, "The governor is encouraged . . . there has been some progress."

And when I ask Senate GOP Leader Jake Corman about serving something up for Thanksgiving, he says it's doable: "At least I hope so."

OK, so after being miles apart on spending and taxes since Wolf presented budget plans in March, the guv and the R's now are close to peace in the valley.

This is no doubt due to getting sick of looking at each other, fears of ruined holidays or missing Pennsylvania Society weekend up in New York City.

So resolution could be right around the corner.

Unless . . .

In a phone conversation with Wolf, I asked a question built around the fact that despite "new" progress, a resolution relies on so-far-un-resolvable issues of taxes and pension and liquor reforms and, therefore, is subject to blowing up.

If it does, I asked, would Wolf go to war against the Legislature?

Would he wage a new, high-profile campaign urging voters to pressure lawmakers to approve what polling says folks want: a severance tax on natural gas, property-tax relief and more money for public schools?

"I'm ready to do that," Wolf says. "I'd be really happy to tell that story."

So, a second path looms.

Meanwhile, it's pretty plain that both sides are talking about doing what they could have done months ago.

Sticking points are unchanged: new revenue (and how much) to reduce the deficit and better fund schools along with new property-tax breaks, pension reform and state-store privatization.

Insiders say that what's on the table is some expansion of the sales tax, some management-level privatization of booze, shifting some gaming funds, some pension changes for new state workers and teachers, more for schools. In other words, a little bit of everything so that everybody can claim some level of victory.

This was always the predictable path.

And if you need evidence of Pennsylvania's penchant for sameness, look back to 2003, to the last Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, and his first budget.

It passed just before Christmas. Guess what the issues were: school funding, raising taxes, budget deficit and property-tax relief.

It included a tax increase to fill an $800 million budget hole (Wolf administration says that's also the current hole), to address a $1.8 billion budget deficit (Wolf administration says that's also next year's budget deficit, if unaddressed) and to spend more on education.

After it passed, Rendell said this: "The governor didn't win. The Legislature didn't win. But the people won."

Stand by for history to repeat itself.

Unless . . .

Wolf ran as a different kind of politician, a businessman who knows how to negotiate (although I'm thinking he's learned that the Legislature ain't no corporate board room).

There's at least the possibility he sticks to his guns if he can't get enough of his priority list and then chooses a path other than the most predictable one.

Maybe then his story would match the closing lines of Frost's famed poem:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

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Email: baerj@phillynews.com

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