I’m back in Harrisburg and ready to get back to a regular session schedule. We voted on a few bills today, and have several more scheduled for the next couple of days. The House is working on the Governor’s budget bill and expects to have a vote on it on March 22nd. Not only is this a bad bill for the obvious reasons of too much spending, no reform and not enough revenue to support itself, it is also starting from a number that is not correct. We just had another month where the revenues fell well short of projections. We are approaching about a $500,000 shortfall right now. The Governor says we will be short $525,000 by June 30. No one thinks that will be the case. These actions do not bode well for getting the budget done on time. Unfortunately, starting this far apart and using bad figures, makes it very difficult to work out a realistic budget. It’s no wonder he has never gotten a budget done on time.

- John