State Rep. Rick Mirabito, D-Williamsport, told a small gathering of citizens Thursday night that the recently passed state budget hurts rural residents the most in the state because they can least sustain the cuts made to education and social programs.
Just nine people turned out for the town hall meeting in Hepburn Township, most of whom eventually expressed their views on some of the issues discussed.
The budget process, Mirabito said, was a flawed one in a number of ways.
The lawmaker noted that Gov. Tom Corbett chose to spend no more than $27 billion early on, based on the amount of revenues the state would receive.
But a funny thing happened between March and June when the state received unanticipated tax revenues of nearly $800 million.
That extra money, he said, could have been used to restore funding to programs and services otherwise cut.
Mirabito said Republicans, who represented the majority in both Houses, shut Democrats out of the budget process.
While conceding that Democrats might well have done the same thing had they been the majority party, it was not a good way to consider a spending plan, he said.
Mirabito said Republicans refused to consider other revenue sources such as closing the Delaware loophole, whereby corporations set up headquarters in Delaware but escape paying taxes on their companies based in Pennsylvania.
"Twenty-six states have closed it (the loophole)," he said.
Mirabito said another option ignored by Republicans was to pass legislation to collect taxes on Internet sales.
Finally, the Republicans failed to impose a severance tax on gas drilling.
He noted that the House has voted twice to impose the tax, with the Senate failing to act on it.
"We've already lost revenue by not imposing a severance tax," he said.
Ironically, he said the majority of people favor it.
As it is, Pennsylvania remains the only state with gas drilling not to have the tax.
Mirabito said he felt it was significant to note that Corbett received millions of dollars in campaign financing from gas drillers.
He noted that he received two donations from the gas industry, totaling $750.
Paul Moore, of Loyalsock Township, said he was happy to reap benefits from leasing land to a gas company but admitted he's leery of drillers using water for the fracking process.
Mirabito said while the gas industry insists there have been no accidents due to fracking, he remains concerned about it.
Education cuts hurt school districts in Lycoming County harder than more affluent suburban districts, according to Mirabito.
For example, in Radnor Township School District, education cuts meant $39 less per student.
By contrast, the cuts meant a loss of $652 per student in Williamsport, according to Mirabito.
In fact, each school district in Lycoming County absorbed a much higher cut per student than in Radnor.
"This is significant for people to recognize that in rural areas where the economic base is not as strong it hurts the people more," he said.
Cutting education funding, he added, means weakening the state's ability to prepare students for jobs in Pennsylvania.
Mirabito said the state spends much of its budget on corrections, thanks to an increasingly growing prison population.
But building prisons, especially for economically distressed areas, can spell economic development in the way of jobs.
That feeds into the mindset of building more jails for criminal offenders, many of whom might be better served by drug rehabilitation
He noted that the U.S. imprisons more people than any other nation.
Mirabito said he's still examining the issue of privatizing the state liquor business.
On the plus side, the government has been able to collect 100 percent of all sales taxes from its stores.
He said he's concerned that privatization could lead to corporatization of the state liquor business and possibly monopolies. He said he'd like to further examine if alcohol-related problems would increase through privatization.
"There's pros and cons," he said.
Chris Bain, of Williamsport, argued that the government should not be in the liquor business,
As it now stands, the stores are manned by state workers "and you get into pension issues," Bain said.
On another topic, Mirabito said he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, while adding that the civil rights of all people should be protected.
"Homosexuality has been around forever," he said. "People may have different views on it."
