Rendell plans new budget approach
By this time next week Pennsylvanians will know how their new governor plans to close a $2 billion budget gap without raising taxes for general government upkeep and in keeping with his campaign promises to provide more funding for public schools. It’s a tall order and one that Gov. Ed Rendell says he can’t fill in just one budget address. Instead he plans to present two installments. The first part to be delivered to the General Assembly on March 4 will call for across-the-board 10 percent cuts to every department, along with other deep reductions. “That will mean some very, very painful cuts in different parts of our budget,” Rendell said.
The second installment, to follow in a few weeks, will detail how he plans to increase school funding while decreasing property taxes. To accomplish this, some increase in state income tax is expected.
In order for the second phase of Rendell’s plan to gain public support, Pennsylvanians must be convinced that the governor has done everything in the first phase to trim government spending without curtailing essential services.
The broad base strokes sound encouraging. The nitty-gritty details can potentially cripple the budget-making process. Every dollar the state spends is critical to some group, agency, department that considers it essential; so resistance is sure to be strong. Local governments and school districts should also follow the process closely because state reductions can easily trigger local tax hikes.
Already Rendell’s unprecedented two-part budget plan is meeting resistance by Republicans who want the whole deal at once. They even claim that this bifurcated approach might delay bringing a budget in on time by the June 30 deadline as if dillydallying by the lawmakers themselves hasn’t cut it close in the past.
Timing isn’t the problem here. It is one of boldness. Rendell’s plan will call upon lawmakers to think differently and to act on issues that have simmered on backburners. The governor will finally force the General Assembly to address equity in school funding and to relieve the ever-growing property tax burden. It will force them to raise replacement taxes and vote on legalizing slots at the race tracks.
The new governor is demonstrating that old approaches aren’t necessarily the only way. The General Assembly ought to try Rendell’s way to determine if it works.