SUNBURY – The seemingly never ending budget negotiations in Harrisburg did give way to a revenue package last week. State house member Fred Keller (85th, Kreamer) said he was glad to see a compromises on a $2.2 billion revenue package. This is a plan to pay for last year’s budget deficit.
On WKOK Sunrise, Keller said, “If I didn’t believe that we were going to see some changes going forward, I wouldn’t have supported it. But again, to negotiate to get those changes going forward, you’ve got to compromise, you’ve got to do some things. But it’s a far better plan than all the tax increases on utilities.”
Rep. Keller says the house plan is still better than the Senate plan. He says the House plan borrows about 30% less than the Senate plan, “The Senate plan was a minimum of $1.3 billion. So what the Senate wanted to do was issue bonds. In the house plan, we would what they call monetize it. What that means is you get a cash payment now, and then they get a portion of our payments over the course of 10 years.”
The house plan uses existing, but unused, revenues from previous years, to gain sufficient revenue to cover last year’s budget. You can hear more from Rep. Keller at WKOK.com. (Matt Catrillo)
