Local lawmakers expressed optimistic this week that a state budget will be passed by thedeadline Wednesday. We can't believe we're writing this, but as much as we'd like the budget on time, we would rather it be late than wrong.
Gov. Ed Rendell and key allies in the Legislature are pushing for a budget with General Fund spending topping $28 billion, less than the $29 billion the governor has been proposing but more than the $27.5 billion in tax collections projected for 2010-11.
If the state were using the correct budget approach, the $27.5 billion figure would have been the basis of the General Fund plan weeks ago.
Instead, the governor was hauling public school advocates to the Capitol Rotunda to tout the need to boost public education spending yet again on instruction and operations by $350 million, 6 percent more than the $5.5 billion budgeted this year. We all should advocate for a strong public education system. But that doesn't mean the spending can be increased by double the rate of inflation during a slow economy and budget crunch, even as enrollments in most parts of the state are dropping.
There were teachers, parents and schoolchildren at the Rotunda. The goal is make the state Senate the heartless heavy should it not cave in to the governor's education proposal. Not there were the state-supported human services agencies that operate on shoestring budgets and have been enduring deep cuts due to the administration's eight-year pattern of spending increases.
They are the ones who have suffered most from poor spending discipline in state government.
That discipline must be returned to the state now, even if it holds up the budget a few days. The state's next governor will have to deal with the debts this governor and a loose-spending legislative majority have been building up. Let's start the process now.
