Sep 19, 2015 2 min read

The next step in the state budget impasse travesty will heap insult upon injury. General Assembly Republicans will pass a stopgap budget which will garner not one Democratic vote and which will be vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf.

The GOP leadership will tell the citizens that they acted responsibly in order to fund schools and social-service agencies that are dependent on state money and they will slam Democrats for being cold-hearted and unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities.

The governor and his loyalists will counter that the stopgap measure only serves to delay enactment of a legitimate full budget, and that it serves to ignore his call for a Marcellus Shale extraction tax, large, broad-based increases in the levies on income and sales, and the provision of hundreds of millions of additional dollars for education.

The path to compromise in our divided government, giving both sides some of what they want, has been clear since the governor delivered his budget address early this year, but neither side is yet interested in implementing it.

Both Republicans and Democrats, including the governor, are guilty of dereliction of duty. Cutting off their salaries would not likely bring about budget harmony, but it is a disgrace that they are able to continue being compensated for refusing to do their jobs. How many of the bumblers will coast to re-election?

Oren Spiegler

Upper St. Clair