HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration began its defense of a $33.3 billion budget proposal Monday, with the Democrat confronting Pennsylvania government’s worst budget gridlock in decades and a Republican-controlled Legislature that is hostile to the election-year tax increase he wants.
Republicans faced off with Wolf’s budget secretary, Randy Albright, at the first Senate Appropriations Committee hearing over Wolf’s warnings of local tax increases and steep school layoffs if lawmakers choose to close a $2 billion-plus projected deficit by spending cuts alone.
“That’s a nice math game, but come on,” Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre.
Corman pointed out that Republicans had backed increased aid for schools before Wolf vetoed billions in education aid, and that the rate of school property tax increases has slowed in recent years.
Albright responded that Wolf’s warnings are both accurate and realistic, citing the impact of a deep cut in state aid to schools in 2011.
“It’s not rhetoric, it’s math,” Albright responded to Corman.
The December veto by Wolf was at least in part designed to force Republicans to agree to a higher aid figure for schools after a bipartisan agreement supported by Wolf and top Republican lawmakers collapsed.
As a result, billions of dollars for prisons, hospitals, schools and universities remain in limbo.
It was Wolf’s third full or partial veto of a Republican spending plan within six months and Sen. Pat Vance, R-Cumberland, criticized Albright for Wolf’s veto of millions of dollars for hospitals. Hospitals are closing programs and laying off staff, she said.
