The June 30th deadline for Pennsylvania’s budget is looming, and the PA House Republicans report that the Democrats picked up and ran off for the weekend earlier today leaving no chance at any agreement until Monday the 29th.
Maybe they were spooked by a new poll showing that cash strapped PA residents prefer budget cuts to Governor Ed Rendell’s proposed 16% tax hike. The poll was sponsored by a number of media groups in the state including Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV.
Only 29 percent of 580 people surveyed at random said the state General Assembly should hike taxes to overcome a projected $3.2 billion budget, deficit while 44 percent say they prefer the spending cuts, according to the poll.
The figures are likely to buttress the argument of Republicans in the state General Assembly who oppose Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s push for a 16 percent increase in the state income tax.
“People don’t want their taxes raised,” said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Republicans. “They agree with our contention that it’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem as the governor continues to insist.”
This in spite of the scare tactics employed by Rendell and other “tax ‘em if you got ‘em” Pennsylvania Democrats. Rendell and his people in particular seem to be having quite a temper tantrum as Fast Eddie’s plans to sock it to the taxpayers receive growing push-back.
In a televised debate Wednesday night with Lt. Governor Joe Scarnati, Rendell exploded about Commonwealth Foundation estimates that 24,000 jobs would be lost because of his proposed tax hike. The Foundation reports that Rendell got “agitated” and called the study “‘BS’, ‘a red herring’, and ’specious’.
After making the laughable assertion that the Governor “doesn’t live by the polls,” a Rendell spokesman threw a fit in response to release of the polling data. He rattled off a list of scare-them-off programs that could be cut such as State Troopers and school subsidies, claiming the latter would result in higher property taxes.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says the claim about higher property taxes for schools is bunk.
Gov. Ed Rendell’s assertion that school property taxes would go up if the Legislature doesn’t approve an income-tax increase is based on “faulty assumptions” that overlook substantial boosts for school districts — even in the Senate’s bare-bones budget, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi said Wednesday.
With state and federal stimulus money, school districts would receive an average 10 percent increase under the Senate bill, the Delaware County Republican told the Tribune-Review.
To scare voters into supporting his tax hike, Rendell also claims that health care for children will be cut otherwise.
Rendell stopped at a [Delaware County] day care center [Wednesday] to highlight an $8 million cut the GOP controlled senate is looking to make in CHIP which would, by the Governor’s estimate, cause a $16 million federal match to vanish.
Republicans insist that’s not a cut but rather declining an increase in spending for the program sought by the Governor.
It’s nothing but the same tax, tax, tax playbook by Rendell and the Democrats. Everyone has to adjust their spending to match their income these days. Rendell should be no different.
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