DN Editorial: MIND THE STOPGAP

AFTER 2 1/2 MONTHS of stalemate over the state budget, push has come to shove in Harrisburg.

The Republican-led Legislature appears ready to pass a so-called stopgap budget to temporarily fund state government. The Senate passed the bill last week. The state House is due to debate it this week and almost certainly will pass it.

It's a tempting proposition. The bill would appropriate $11 billion to keep the state operating until the end of October, thus giving Gov. Wolf and the Legislature extra time to come up with an agreement on the issues dividing them.

It would certainly be a relief to local governments and school districts, who depend on regular infusions of state aid to keep their operations up and running. Many are facing the option of curtailing services or borrowing money to make up the hole.

Despite this, we strongly urge the governor to veto the stopgap bill.

Although it will provide short-term relief for local governments and school districts, it does nothing to settle the larger, long-term issues facing state government.

For starters, stopgaps are like the old commercial about potato chips: Once you have one it's hard to stop.

In the late '60s and early '70s, Harrisburg became addicted to stopgaps, passing one after another. Why? Because the Legislature - then as now controlled by Republicans - could not muster the moxie to increase taxes in the face of deficit after deficit.

So, as the years progressed, instead of having one big crisis, we had many smaller ones - with local governments biting their nails over whether another stopgap would be put in place. And then another. And then another.

Stopgaps are not a way to solve a problem. They are a way to run away from it.

The issues are clear: The state has been spending beyond its means for several years, using gimmicks to "balance" the budget.

Wolf was elected on a platform to change that. His plan would increase some taxes (the sales and income taxes to name two) and decrease others (business and property taxes).

Republican leaders said they wouldn't even discuss new taxes unless Wolf embraced two of their A-list items: public pension reform and privatization of liquor sales.

Last week, Wolf did offer to take steps on those two issues with proposals that made significant concessions - exactly along the lines Republicans wanted. We hoped that would signal the beginning of serious negotiations. It did not.

In reality, pensions and the LCB are not on the A-list. Republicans have one goal: to stop any and all tax increases.

They would rather see a return to the slash-and-burn days of the Corbett years, when spending for education, core government services and social-welfare programs was cut again and again, shifting the burden to local governments to pick up the slack - usually by raising local taxes.

It was a shell game that worked for a while, then voters recoiled from the damage done, particularly to our schools, and decisively ousted Gov. Tom Corbett in favor of the Democrat, Wolf.

Stopgap budgets are the same tactic Republicans in Washington use, though it is called a "continuing resolution" in Congress. It's their way of thwarting the priorities of President Obama and of keeping departments on a short leash, never knowing how long they can keep functioning.

We shouldn't imitate what the pols in Washington do and fall into the same trap.

We don't need stopgaps in Pennsylvania. We need solutions.