What a mess in Harrisburg
The next step in the state budget impasse travesty will heap insult upon injury. General Assembly Republicans will pass a stop-gap budget which will garner not one Democratic vote and which will be vetoed by Gov. Wolf.
The GOP leadership will tell the citizens that they are acted responsibly in order to fund schools and social service agencies that are dependent on state money and they will decry the 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 drilling tax, large, broad-based increases in the levies on income and sales, and the provision of hundreds of millions more 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.
Pennsylvania is second only to similarly split Illinois in budget dysfunction. Neither state appears likely to have a budget enacted this year, if ever, and none of our leaders suffers any consequences for their malfeasance.
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, making an obscene gesture to the people of Pennsylvania. How many of the bumblers will coast to re-election?
Oren M. Spiegler is a resident of Upper St. Clair.