Why I Voted “NO” on the Tom Corbett State Budget

This week the House of Representatives debated and voted on the 2013-14 state budget, based largely on the plan proposed by Governor Corbett in February. I voted “NO” on this budget bill, which will go to the State Senate and then to Governor Corbett for his signature, likely sometime between now and June 30.

Just as a refresher, Pennsylvania is very different from the federal government when it comes to budgets. Pennsylvania is constitutionally obligated to pass a balanced budget every year; this is why we don’t have the same kind of debt the federal government does. When you hear about the “national debt”, it really is the federal government and not the state. Debt in Pennsylvania is limited to specific items that must be repaid, like bond issues for large projects, and those debt payments must be included in the annual state budget.

So it should be pretty simple, right? You spend what you have, and nothing more. While most people agree this is sound fiscal policy, the real debate in any budget is all about priorities. A budget is more than a stack of spreadsheets; it’s a statement of values and principles. It’s not how much you spend as much as how you spend it, and that’s where my problems with the Corbett budget begin.

Since taking office in 2011, Governor Corbett has given approximately $1 billion in corporate tax breaks; this is nearly the same amount of the cuts to public education over the same time span. As a result of passing the buck to local school districts, we are paying higher property taxes while classroom size explodes. How can even the very best teacher handle a classroom of forty children? Adding to the problem is the failure to address the inequity in funding to cyber schools, which take hundreds of thousands of your local school district’s tax dollars every year to fund a system riddled with questionable accountability.

The lack of commitment to education funding doesn’t stop at the K-12 level; largely due to cuts made to higher education, Pennsylvania now ranks second in the nation for average student debt. This crushing debt puts our young adults at a real competitive disadvantage as they enter the work force. It doesn’t help that despite the rhetoric about job creation, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate remains above the national unemployment rate. This budget proposal ignores opportunities to encourage job creation in many sectors including health care, construction, education, entertainment and the horse racing industry. This isn’t about “government creating jobs”; it’s about making the smart investments in areas where private sector job growth will take place on its own.

Proposals like outsourcing the management of the Pennsylvania Lottery will have a real impact on the services essential to our senior citizens. Programs like the Property Tax/Rent Rebate, PACE and PACENET, Meals on Wheels and funding our senior centers are essential to our older population, and there is simply no reason to risk them by outsourcing the Pennsylvania Lottery to a foreign company as Governor Corbett is desperately trying to do.

For all these reasons and many more, I voted “NO” on Governor Corbett’s 2013-14 budget proposal. We don’t necessarily need to spend more money to make Pennsylvania a better place; we just need to adjust our priorities and values so we can spend it better.