Hey Corbett: Fix the Mess, Keep Your Word and Give Us Our Money Back

In his first budget address to the General Assembly on March 8, Gov. Tom Corbett laid out the principles by which he intended to govern:

“So, to the people of Pennsylvania, the taxpayers who sent us here, I want to say something you haven’t heard often enough from this building: We get the picture. It’s your money,” he said.

I was sitting 50 feet away from him in the hall of the House of Representatives when he spoke those words, and I looked up his speech on the Internet just to make sure I had heard him correctly.

What a difference a few months makes.

As we charge into the political inferno known as the state budget deadline, it has become very clear that the governor’s rhetoric has gone far afield of reality.

Because of nearly $1.2 billion in cuts to basic education, nearly every school district in the area has been forced to raise property taxes and cut vital programs. Students are being asked to pay to participate in the marching band. Field trips are a thing of the past. Classes such as art and music are endangered species. Meanwhile, class sizes are soaring, depriving students of the individual attention they require.

I have visited schools across my legislative district and met with parents, teachers and administrators. They are working as hard as they can to find ways to pinch pennies and stretch dollars, but in most instances there is simply no way to make up such large cuts, even with belt tightening and tax increases. People are frustrated, and they should be; in fact, they should be downright angry.

Why? This is a funding crisis created by Corbett and the legislative Republicans, pure and simple.

At the same time he chose to slash education funding, the governor proposed increases for the Department of Public Welfare and the Department of Corrections. He eliminate funding for AdultBasic, leaving 41,000 working Pennsylvanians without health insurance, while simultaneously signing off on hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare and a $2 billion slush fund of personally controlled Walking Around Money intiatives called the Liberty Loan Fund.

This isn’t political spin—the numbers are readily available online from Corbett’s budget proposal, which literally has his name on it (see document attached).

What’s worse, the school districts impacted the most by the cuts are disproportionately poorer, often rural areas. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right and most importantly, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Because of increased revenues (not tax increases), we actually have a $506 million budget surplus, which can be projected out to $1 billion for this budget. It’s there, right in front of us, and can be used to restore these education cuts and prevent your property taxes from going up.

But for reasons beyond comprehension, Corbett and the Republicans who control the Legislature refuse to use the surplus to restore education funding. In a speech on the House floor, the Republican appropriations chairman said the money should be used for more giveaways to big corporations, who don’t even pay their fair share of taxes in Pennsylvania.

Not only does their reasoning defy common sense, it defies their own promise to the people of Pennsylvania.

In his budget address, Corbett said, “They (the taxpayers) know the value of their money better than we do. We need to be better stewards of their wealth. We must spend no more than we have. We must not lay waste our powers by breaking the bank. We must not lay waste our powers by breaking our word. We said we’d fix this mess. And we will.”

Well Governor, you’re breaking the bank of every family in Pennsylvania by refusing to use the surplus to restore education funding. Worse yet, you are clearly passing the buck down to the little guy and adding insult to injury by labeling your tactics as “fiscal responsibility."

The mess is simple—this Republican budget hurts our children and raises our property taxes. You want to keep your promise and “fix this mess?" It’s real easy- give us our $1 billion surplus back so we can prevent these tax hikes.

Despite the flowery rhetoric, Tom Corbett has clearly broken his word. He said it himself- that surplus is the taxpayers’ money, not his. If he really does “get the picture," he and the Republicans in the Legislature will do the right thing and give the $1 billion surplus back to the people in this year’s budget.