Gov. Wolf takes a bold stand in his budget address

IF ANYONE thought Gov. Wolf was going to duck and run from the financial challenges the state faces, better think again.

The governor came out swinging in his budget address delivered to the Legislature Tuesday: doubling down on his demand for higher taxes and more spending on education. Republicans were quick to pronounce Wolf's proposals as dead on arrival.

They are content with the politics of paralysis that seized Harrisburg for the past year. Forget about next year's budget. The Republican-controlled Legislature hasn't even passed a budget for the current year.

Wolf called for an end to this nonsense: "If you won't take seriously your responsibility to the people of Pennsylvania . . . then find yourself another job," he said.

It helps that Wolf has the facts on his side. As he said in his speech, this isn't about politics, it is about math.

The math tells us that unless the state does something to end the gridlock, it will face a deficit of $300 million to $500 million in the current year and a $2 billion deficit in the fiscal year than begins July 1.

If that deficit comes to pass, instead of expanding state aid to education, the education budget will have to be cut - setting off another round of budget cuts and tax increases across the state's school districts.

Can you imagine what this deficit would mean to the Philadelphia School District, which only now is emerging from the deep hole created by former Gov. Corbett's cuts?

That's only the beginning of the story. A $2 billion deficit also would mean cuts to social service programs, to state departments' operating budgets, to programs for the mentally ill and disabled.

Wolf has the same goals he had in his first year in office: put the state's financial house in order so it avoids deficits now and in the future, and increase aid to public education to make up for the damage done during the Corbett years.

To do this, he wants to raise the income tax from 3.07 percent to 3.4 percent, extend the sales tax to such items as basic cable service and movie tickets, impose a $1-per-pack tax on cigarettes and enact a 6.5 percent tax on gas from the Marcellus Shale.

No one likes higher taxes, and clearly Wolf knows he won't get all he has asked for. Under normal circumstances, the budget address would mark the beginning of the negotiating process among legislators and the governor's office. Last year, after a painful six-month process, a compromise was reached that gave Wolf some of what he asked for - half a loaf, really. That proposal passed the state Senate, but the anti-tax Republicans in the state House walked away from the deal at the last minute.

These Republicans, deep into denial about the reality of the situation, instead offered a budget that gave Wolf nothing and papered over the fact the budget did not balance with the usual gimmicks and tricks employed during the Corbett years. They didn't fool anyone: the Wall Street rating agencies lowed Pennsylvania's bond rating once again.

As Wolf noted: "If you were running a business, and you took a budget like this to your banker, you would be laughed out of the room."

Wolf's speech was an impassioned plea for the insanity to end in Harrisburg. Our last best hope is that responsible Republicans - those still in touch with reality - will rise to the governor's challenge and work toward a compromise.