State Budget and Taxes

Attacks on Public Sector Workers Hurt Working People and Benefit the Rich

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on April 22, 2017 1:47 pm
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Republican lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House and Senate continue to promote bills that would reduce the power of public sector unions by undercutting them financially. These bills would make it harder or illegal to collect some current contributions to unions (e.g., from non-members who enjoy higher wages and benefits and workplace representation from public sector unions).

House GOP Budget Unites Pennsylvanians Across the Political Spectrum ... in CONDEMNING It

Posted by Jeff Garis on April 11, 2017 6:25 pm
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House Bill 218, the unbalanced, cuts-only budget that House Republican leaders fast-tracked through the lower chamber in a near party-line vote last week, has provoked plenty of criticism. Not surprisingly, Democratic legislators decried the many cuts that accompany a budget that reduces total expenditures by 1% over the current fiscal year.

Guest Blogger: We Must Have Missed the Memo

Posted by Guest Blogger on April 10, 2017 11:55 am
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by Jin David Kim, Communications Director, PCCY

Some state representatives, siding with the research and the will of the people they represent, have boarded the quality pre-k train only to threaten to derail it in this, the first week of PA’s budget process.

The (Wholly Inadequate) GOP Budget Proposal (HB 218)

Posted by Marc Stier on April 6, 2017 2:34 pm
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The House Republican Budget proposal for 2017-2017 is deeply problematic in six respects. 

First, the proposal does not close the state’s budget deficit, but leaves a gap of close to $800 million. Most of the revenue ideas presented by the House Republican Caucus to fill that gap are similar to the one-time revenues and fund transfers that have failed to fix our structural deficit in the past. The Republicans do not seem to be considering any proposal to increase recurring revenues by fixing our upside-down tax system.

The Obamacare repeal is a state budget time bomb

Posted by John Neurohr on January 26, 2017 4:23 pm
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This piece originally ran in Pennlive on January 26, 2017.

You think Pennsylvania has budget problems now? Wait until the Affordable Care Act is gone. 

That's probably a parochial, Harrisburg-centric way of looking at the consequences of repealing Obamacare.

The ACA has benefited Pennsylvanians in so many ways that its eventual repeal will be terribly painful.

We recently released a report that shows that 1.1 million Pennsylvanians will lose insurance and additional 3,250 deaths will occur each year as a result.

How did the Pennsylvania Labor Market Perform in 2016

Last Friday, The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry released preliminary estimates of December payrolls which show Pennsylvania created 32,000 jobs in the last 12 months. Payroll growth was especially weak in the 2nd half of 2016, which is likely one reason state revenue collections through December are $300 million below projections. Despite this weakness, payrolls still grew more in 2016 than they did in 2012 and 2013 when deep budget cuts weighed on job growth in Pennsylvania.

The State and Local Government Workforce in Pennsylvania is the 2nd Smallest in the Country

Posted by Mark Price on January 11, 2017 1:26 pm
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As we begin to debate the 2017-18 state budget, the anti-government spin merchants will (yet again) paint a picture of a menacing, out-of-control public sector in Pennsylvania eating up taxpayers like a great Kraken.

But facts do matter. And the picture they will paint is the opposite of the true picture, shown above. 

OP-ED: Combine spending restraint with new revenue

Posted by Marc Stier on January 5, 2017 11:05 am
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This piece originally appeared in the Erie Times-News, December 28, 2016.

Pennsylvania has been struggling with persistent budget deficits since the start of the Great Recession in 2008. And we at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center have been recommending a "balanced approach" to resolving the deficit from the beginning, one that combines restraint in spending with new revenues.

But since 2010, under Govs. Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf, the General Assembly has adopted an unbalanced approach. Spending has gone down but revenues have gone down faster. From 1994 to 2011, under both Democratic and Republican governors, the state spent 4.7 percent of the state's gross domestic product. During the Corbett years that fell to 4.3 percent as spending on education and human services were sharply cut. And while, thanks to Wolf, the state has been able to restore some of those cuts, spending in the last two years remains at the same level as in the Corbett years.

OP-ED: Time to fix our upside-down tax system

Posted by Marc Stier on January 4, 2017 5:37 pm
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This piece originally appeared in the York Dispatch, December 23, 2016.

Pennsylvania has been struggling with persistent budget deficits since the start of the Great Recession in 2008. And we at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center have been recommending a “balanced approach” to resolving the deficit from the beginning, one that combines restraint in spending with new revenues.

But since 2010, under Gov. Tom Corbett and Gov. Tom Wolf, the General Assembly has adopted an unbalanced approach. Spending has gone down but revenues have gone down faster. From 1994 to 2011, under both Democratic and Republican governors, the state spent 4.7 percent of the state’s GDP. During the Corbett years, that fell to 4.3 percent as spending on education and human services were sharply cut. And while, thanks to Wolf, the state has been able to restore some of those cuts, spending in the last two years remains at the same level as in the Corbett years.

OP-ED: The rich can take the hit - to fix the budget, they should pay their fair share

Posted by Marc Stier on January 4, 2017 5:32 pm
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This piece originally appeared on Pennlive, December 23, 2016.

You remember how Lucille Ball would work her way into some kind of predicament and then look around and wonder how she got there? That’s how our state legislators seem to look at the budget deficit we are stuck with right now. They are looking around wondering how the current Pennsylvania budget deficit, which approaches $3 billion for this year and next year together, happened. 

But it didn’t just happen. It was the product of a series of long-term and short-term decisions made by legislators, sometimes with the help of our governors.

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