Saccone offers budget option
With hopes of approving a state budget before Christmas up in the air, one member of the Legislature is single-handedly proposing his own version.
State Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth, offered a $29.7 billion budget – $500 million less than the $30.2 billion package passed this week by the State House.
Neither liquor nor pension reform are part of the package, and Saccone said he got to the number by halving proposed increases on each line item in the House budget proposal. That means increases over last year’s budget still would be sought – by 1.8 percent overall – but not at their full amount. Items with no proposed increases would remain the same. And the proposal would still allocate $530 million more compared to last year’s budget.
“We have to fund this government without a tax increase. There’s this insatiable desire for spending in (Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration) right now. With the governor’s compromise on the House budget that passed – that puts us at $1.2 billion more in taxes,” Saccone said.
Saccone had yet to seek co-sponsors for his proposal Friday, but he conceded if he gets other lawmakers to sign on, it will be a battle getting it to a floor vote.
“It’s going to be tough. We need other legislators’ support on this. There will be all kinds of excuses that we’re too late in the process or that we have to work with what’s already there, but we cannot allow this to be an excuse for a huge tax increase. We need a stopgap to block this huge juggernaut,” Saccone said.
His proposal would boost education funding by $50 million, but the costs of those increases would be offset with spending cuts. Saccone did not explain what cuts he would seek.
“The budget proposal right now, I haven’t done any cutting yet,” he said when asked about specifics.
Meanwhile, state Rep. Pam Snyder, D-Jefferson, said she sees the solution as working on the existing proposals.
“Compromise with the rest of us, work until it’s done, and put the greater good before partisan and petty politics,” Snyder said.
She said House Speaker Mike Turzai needs to “call us back and get this done.”
Saccone said he’ll circulate petitions for colleagues to join him on his proposal over the weekend as the Legislature stays in Harrisburg in an attempt to find a solution. Political experts and legislative aides have said the final framework is likely to be hashed out next week.