Last night was the first blog post for a long time that I didn’t include the tag line, “ X days without a real budget”. It feels good to say that even though I am not happy with the final product. I will say that the final product could have been a lot worse. The people of PA could have had a 16% Personal Income Tax increase and taxes on natural gas drilling and who knows what else. Also, we could have had a spend number of over a billion dollars more. We got in the language about establishing an independent fiscal office, which will shape how all budgets are done in the future, and made cuts to many lines that needed to be cut. Historically, when we have had economic downturns, the spending number goes up dramatically to buy the votes needed for the budget deal that includes enormous tax increases to pay for the downturn plus the added vote buying. This scenario did not happen this time and I am thankful for that. We have gotten better budgets in each of the past three years. I hope this trend continues.
- John
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