2010 State Budget vote.

By Stephen Barrar

The budget passed this year is not balanced and is bad for the citizens of our Commonwealth.

Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the state budget needs to be a balanced budget. But the spending plan that was approved yesterday relies on $850 million in federal dollars that have been voted down twice by the U.S. Congress. Last week, the U.S. Senate leadership announced that the bill was "dead." Based on the posturing coming out of Washington, DC, it seems there is little chance that we will receive this additional $850 million. Put simply, I do not think we should plan on spending the money until it until it is clear we will actually receive this revenue.

My concern is that adding this revenue into the budget and spending it might a clever way for the Governor to force us into raising taxes. Governor Rendell through the entire budget debate insisted that the people of Pennsylvanian's supported higher taxes and were demanding we take this money out of your wallets. I am not making this up. The Governor said the people of Pennsylvania wanted more government spending and higher taxes. Now I'm not sure who he has been talking to, but most off the families I know are looking to cut their household budgets to get by. I don't know of any that are particularly anxious to give it away to the state government.

The budget that was ultimately adopted yesterday includes the Governor's demand for an additional $62 million to the Department of Community and Economic Development to be used by the Governor at his discretion. At the same time, funding was cut for Basic Education, Libraries, Pre-K Education, aid to non-public schools, and other important programs. At the same time, the state pension system was not funded, at the level required. This will cause even more problems with our state's under-funded pension. Similarly, last year the Auditor General highlighted $300 million in fraud in welfare spending there is nothing in this budget to address this problem.

But there is a silver lining. This budget looks far different the one first proposed by Governor Rendell in February. That budget contained over a billion dollars in new spending and over a billion dollars in new tax increases that would have hurt families and businesses in our state. That would have only further delayed our economic recovery.

My constituents and taxpayer all over this state are demanding we get our fiscal house in order. My "No" vote on this budget reflects my belief that we needed a better budget to put Pennsylvania on the road to fiscal stability. That said, this budget was far better than when we started this process and my Republican colleagues in both the house and Senate deserve credit for turning back the Governor's efforts to raise taxes and increase government spending.