DN Editorial: The Freeze Must Thaw

AMID THE pomp of ceremony of Tom Wolf's inauguration as governor tomorrow, we are sure to hear soothing words from all parties about the need for compromise, about moving the state forward and about bipartisanship.

The challenge - again for all involved - is how to make them real and not simply an exercise in hollow rhetoric, blown away by the winds of January almost as soon as they are uttered.

Most of the political experts fear that we are in for another period of paralysis, with a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled legislature caught in a freeze-frame of conflict over nearly every important issue.

This cannot be.

Pennsylvania will not move forward unless the political class - the men and women we have elected to public office - actually govern and work for the common good. No one is expecting a "Kumbaya" moment in Harrisburg, with political enemies linking arms and letting bygones be bygones.

Leadership is never that simple. What it will take, as Winston Churchill so eloquently put it, is blood, toil, tears and sweat. Still, the effort must be made.

We can begin with a reality check.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is in serious financial trouble. The $2 billion-plus deficit it is facing wasn't made overnight and won't be cured overnight. Every sensible person - from citizen to state bureaucrat - knows that it will have to be done with new or higher taxes.

Anyone who says differently is either lying to you or lying to themselves.

Every respected and independent financial adviser can tell you the fundamentals of the problem: Our spending exceeds our revenue. We have papered over the problem for years with gimmicks and onetime fixes.

This has to stop. We need real and sustainable sources of additional income, and it's going to have to come from you and me and that fellow behind the tree.

The anti-taxers will tell you these statements are not true. There is waste to be exposed, programs that can be cut, fat that can be trimmed. Time for another reality check: That's what we have done for the last four years and look at where it got us. We cut the size of state government, put the schools on a starvation diet and shifted the state's cost for social-welfare programs onto local governments. Still have a huge deficit.

The anti-taxers would have you believe they represent the will of the people, and when it comes to big government, the sentiment here is purely Red State.

That is not true either.

The loud and clear judgment of voters, as expressed in the November election, is that the previous administration's "no new taxes, no way" stance was a mistake: bad for the state and certainly bad for the children of this state.

It was the voters - not politicians - who made education the No. 1 issue in the campaign. By a convincing margin, they handed Gov. Corbett his hat and told him to go away.

If you're a lawmaker, that's something to think about, even if you have the safest of safe seats.

This is not just about education nor is it about taxes. What people want - what the state desperately needs - is leadership: selfless, nonpartisan, sensible leadership.

We've taken the first step with the election of Tom Wolf. But, let's not pretend all is well. It's just one small step on a long journey that will determine our future as a commonwealth.