08/16/2010
When legislative session resumes in September, two issues will be at the top of our agenda. Both are related to state spending and the amount of revenue available for the state budget.
07/15/2010
Last year, Pennsylvania did not pass a budget until October, more than one hundred days after the start of the fiscal year. As a direct result of the failure to meet the legally mandated budget deadline, thousands of Pennsylvanians who rely on programs funded through the state budget were unable to get the services they need.
06/21/2010
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2011, all newly constructed homes in Pennsylvania will be required to have automatic sprinkler systems. While we can all agree with the goal of protecting lives and reducing the number of injuries resulting from residential fires, I am not convinced that this mandate is the best way to achieve that goal.
05/20/2010
Last month, the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) rejected Pennsylvania’s application to toll Interstate 80. The decision creates a $470 million hole in Pennsylvania’s transportation infrastructure budget, and Gov. Ed Rendell has announced he will call a special session of the Legislature to address the situation.
04/20/2010
In March, the House passed a budget bill for the 2010-11 fiscal year. That bill, House Bill 2279, is now being considered by the Senate.
03/19/2010
As you are all aware, Pennsylvania and the nation are facing very difficult economic times. Like most Pennsylvania families, state government must live within its means if it is going to make it through this recession without raising taxes. As lawmakers, it is our responsibility to get the most value out of every taxpayer dollar we spend.
02/18/2010
The 2009-10 fiscal year began on July 1, 2009. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania did not have a budget for the fiscal year until October 2009. That delay meant thousands of Pennsylvanians who rely on programs which are funded through the state budget were unable to get the services they need.
01/26/2010
In recent years, there has been a great deal of talk from lawmakers in Harrisburg about this being a “new era of reform” in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, after the television cameras were turned off and the newspaper stories were written, those promises were, for the most part, never kept.
12/18/2009
When the last fiscal year ended on June 30, Pennsylvania found itself with a budget deficit of more than $3 billion. It is only December, and already the revenue projections for the current fiscal year are more than $217 million below estimates. Unfortunately, our current economic troubles pale in comparison to the problems we will face in 2012-13 if something is not done to address the looming crisis in our public employee pension systems.
11/01/2009
Nearly everyone agrees that our nation’s health care system is in need of reforms that will increase access for the uninsured and reduce costs for everyone. But, there is a great deal of disagreement about how to get there.
10/01/2009
After all of the posturing and political rhetoric has quieted, the recently concluded state budget impasse can be boiled down to a disagreement between two basic philosophies of government spending. One holds that government spending can increase without regard to the revenue on hand and taxes can be raised to make up the difference. The other philosophy holds that government must live within its means and all spending decisions should be based on the amount of money available, not on the assumption that taxes can be raised to generate the money we would like to spend.
09/01/2009
When I began writing this monthly column in January, I did not expect to spend so much time discussing the state budget. As chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, I had intended to use the column to discuss the House Republican legislative agenda on a range of important issues including health care, education and energy.
08/01/2009
Earlier this month, at the request of the governor, the House approved Senate Bill 850, the Senate’s budget plan for the new fiscal year. The governor asked that the bill be sent to him so that state workers, who have been working without pay for several weeks, could be paid. Unfortunately the governor signed the bill only after vetoing large parts of it.
07/01/2009
On July 1, Pennsylvania began its seventh consecutive fiscal year without a budget in place. The Senate passed a budget plan in May. House Republicans have made numerous attempts to bring a spending plan to the House floor so that negotiations on a final budget plan can begin, but, House Democrats have refused to allow any budget debate to take place. Instead, they and Gov. Ed Rendell have spent a great deal of time distorting the facts about the Republican plan in an effort to scare Pennsylvanians into accepting a tax increase.
06/01/2009
Pennsylvania is facing a health care crisis. While 92 percent of our residents have health insurance, there are still too many people who are uninsured. The problem is made worse in this difficult economic time as more and more people are losing their jobs and, as a result, losing their health insurance.