Day 29 without a budget.  The first meeting of the Conference Committee happened today at noon and lasted about 4 hours.  By all reports, not much got done, but a lot of posturing by the House Democrats.  If this continues, it will be a very long time before we see another vote on a budget.  At the same time the Conference Committee was meeting, the Governor had a news conference to say that if the committee did not reach a budget agreement by Monday, he would ask the House to pass Senate Bill 850.  He would then “blue line” everything out of the budget that was not critical to the core functions of government operations and use it as a “bridge” or “stop gap” measure until the legislature worked out the lines he vetoed.  This is a victory for the Republican Senate, state workers, state vendors and the taxpayers.  He has been forced to make a move to pay people before getting into trouble with the feds for not doing so.  His strategy of getting the state employees and the public whipped into a frenzy and having them beat down the legislature did not work.  His numbers don’t add up and now he has no where to run and no where to hide.  We will have an austere budget in place with no new taxes and will be able to approach the remainder of the budget lines from that perspective.  This totally changes the framework of the debate.  It is a good day for hard working Pennsylvanians. 

- John