Everett and Baker are frustrated by process

Two area Republican lawmakers see no solution any time soon to the state budget impasse.

State Reps. Garth Everett, R-Muncy, and Matthew E. Baker, R-Wellsboro, both blame Democrats for holding up the spending plan, which today is three days past the June 30 deadline.

"It's very frustrating to me that for the seventh straight year we don't have a budget on time," Baker said.

He said he'd like to consider a spending plan, even the $29 billion budget proposed by Gov. Ed Rendell in February, which calls for a number of tax hikes and increased spending.

Baker said it's particularly frustrating to have had the House wait more than a month before killing Senate Bill 850, a $27.3 billion, no tax budget backed by Republicans.

As it stands, the choice appears to be between a budget calling for more spending and tax hikes or one that cuts spending and holds the line on taxes.

Meanwhile, with no budget in place, state workers are not getting paid.

"To ask state workers to continue to go to work and not get paid is just unfair," Everett said. "How are they supposed to pay their bills? To use them as pawns in this game is beyond unfair."

Everett said at the very least an emergency funding bill should be passed to ensure employees get paychecks and government operations remain open.

He called out Democratic leaders for holding up the budget process, with negotiations held in secret, and no spending plan to consider by lawmakers.

"If they want to put the governor's budget out and debate that, we don't have any problem with that," he said.

In the meantime, Everett is stepping up efforts in speaking out against tax hikes to help reduce the budget deficit.

The governor recently called for a 16.3 percent hike in the state's personal income tax, but Everett is imploring citizens to make their own views known about taxes.

The governor has argued that the state's 3.07 percent income tax is the second lowest of among 41 states that levy the tax. His tax hike would raise some $1.5 billion annually.

Everett was asked if many people might re-consider tax hikes, if they can help bring in revenues needed to save state programs that might otherwise be cut.

"I have not been approached by a single constituent who says raise my taxes," he said.

Baker said hiking taxes is the wrong route to take, even if it was done during past recessions to help balance state budgets.

"It's a bad paradigm," he said.

State Rep. Rick Mirabito, D-Williamsport, and state Sen. E. Eugene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, could not be reached for comment for this story.