Local lawmakers aren’t exactly thrilled about Gov. Shapiro’s budget proposal calling for a 7.5 increase in spending.

“Overall, I will tell you that it’s a budget that spends too much,” State Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, said.

Hamm noted that aspects of the spending plan he can support such as additional funding for firefighters and emergency personnel.

However, he simply can’t go along with annual budgets showing ever-increasing expenditures.

Hamm claimed that 27 years ago the state’s annual budget was at $18 billion. Shapiro’s proposal would bring it to more than $51.5 billion.

That’s money, he said, that comes from hardworking people and small businesses.

State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, released a statement regarding the budget which included the following: “I’m concerned about the governor’s excessive increase in state spending, his overly optimistic future revenue projections and wildly inaccurate future expenditure assumptions. Estimates show his proposal could eliminate the state’s Rainy Day Fund and create the need for a multi-billion-dollar tax increase on Pennsylvania families within a year and a half.”

State Rep. Jamie Flick, R-South Williamsport, also is opposed to the increased spending proposal.

“That would seem to drain the (budget) surplus when it’s needed,” he said.

Flick said he would have liked Shapiro to bring more substantial investments into the budget, including in rural areas.

Flick said he certainly endorses lowering taxes as proposed by the governor, notably further reduction in the Corporate Net Tax imposed on businesses.

Hamm questioned additional funding for human services, especially given that Shapiro, while attorney general, uncovered wrongful spending in welfare programs.

Flick, on the other hand, said, “I am in favor of the increases in human service increases such as mental health.”

He said he is opposed to legalization of recreational marijuana but supports taxing and regulating games of skill.

A tax on gross revenues of skill games, he noted, would bring millions of dollars of revenue to the state. Hamm agreed.

“I am supportive of the skills games and a reasonable tax. Not the 52% that the governor is proposing,” he said.

Casinos already pay a gambling tax and tax revenues from skill games would fill a funding gap that otherwise is lost for programs that help seniors, he said.

Yaw, sponsor of a bill to tax and regulate skill games, strongly opposed Shapiro’s 52% tax rate, “which will lower revenue projections and impact thousands of small businesses who rely on the games to pay their staff, pay their bills, maintain establishments and pay for donations that help their communities. In fact, the main victim of the governor’s skill proposal will be our veterans’ organizations such as VFWs and American Legions.”

Yaw’s legislation calls for just a 16% tax on skill games.

He further stated he’s “disappointed in the lack of details” surrounding a plan for the state’s energy sector.

“It is difficult to take seriously any statement from the governor claiming he wants to help ease the burden of rising costs and maintain Pennsylvania’s position as an energy powerhouse while he remains fixated on RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). Under RGGI, no baseload generation facility on the planet will consider doing business here,” Yaw stated.

Hamm said he opposes the governor’s push for an increase in the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Shapiro noted that the rate has remained at $7.25 for the past 16 years. Meanwhile, surrounding states, including West Virginia, have increased their minimum wages for workers.

“I don’t think it’s the government’s role to decide the minimum wage,” Hamm said. “Frankly, I don’t know of any businesses that are still paying $7.25 an hour. I do not support a $15 minimum wage because it will drive the cost of everything up.”