Gov. Wolf Vetoes Parts Of Budget, Calls On Legislators To Get Back To Work
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- In accepting much but rejecting some of a Republican budget plan, Gov. Tom Wolf was clear.
"I am going to exercise my constitutional right to line item veto this ridiculous exercise in budget futility," said Wolf on Tuesday morning. "I'm calling on our legislators to get back to Harrisburg, back to the work they left unfinished last week."
His words mocked Republican lawmakers for reneging on an agreed-upon budget framework and racing home for Christmas.
"This pretend budget doesn't make the investments a prudent state government should make," said Wolf.
"This exercise in stupidity actually cuts education funding, $95 million, compared to the draconian Corbett cuts," he added. "The fact remains. They ran off, pretty quickly at that, before they finished their job and they left us all with a real mess."
To both balance the budget and send lawmakers a message, Wolf cut or line-item vetoed about $7 billion in spending from the Republicans' $30.3 billion budget.
While he restored most human services and allowed six months of education funding for schools to stay open, the governor cut $3 billion in basic education funding to force lawmakers to increase funding.
Republicans reacted sharply to the tactic.
"He stood there and said, 'We're not going to hold children hostage -- that's not the right thing to do.' Well, that's what he did in July and that, in essence, is what he's doing now by not releasing all the funding for public schools. He's doing it again," declared Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Mustio, a Moon Republican.
Mustio called the governor's rhetoric poisonous.
"Those of us who work in Harrisburg and put these budgets together know that it's a lie. It's not true, and to say that is poison," Mustio told KDKA political editor Jon Delano
It was always going to be difficult -- a new Democratic governor intent on a budget that restored hundreds of millions of dollars to public education.
The challenge -- getting a Republican legislature to agree.
They very quickly rejected Wolf's plan to tax Marcellus shale drilling to pay for it -- and pushed for pension reform and liquor reform.
That left lawmakers in a stalemate until Senate and House Republicans and the governor reached what they called a budget framework -- until it came crashing down on Christmas Eve.
"That budget actually passed the Republican dominated Senate by a vote of 43 to 7 -- and it passed the House on a number of preliminary votes," said Wolf. "Then, then, before the final vote, Republican House leaders told their members, go home."
House Speaker Mike Turzai engineered that, banking that Senate Republicans would cave to his preferred budget on Christmas Eve.
They did.
Pennsylvania Sen. Jay Costa, the Democratic Senate Leader, was part of all the negotiations.
Delano: "Is it fair to say that House Speaker Mike Turzai won?"
Costa: "This round. If you call taking your ball and going home the day before Christmas Eve to avoid votes that would have provided for a framework budget and would have provided for the revenues we need in Pennsylvania winning, I guess he did win."
Costa says Turzai may have won a round but it's hardly over, as Wolf vetoed $7 billion dollars - nearly a quarter -- of the Republican budget.
"It's certainly not over because we have to go back to the table."
Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Mustio, a Moon Republican, agreed in part.
"I think we can claim victory for the taxpayers. I think we still have a lot of work to do," said Mustio.
With schools only funded for six of twelve months, Wolf's message to lawmakers was clear.
"Let's all of us get back to work to finish the job you almost finished last week."
Earlier this afternoon, Speaker Turzai sent a memo to his House colleagues saying the House is not coming back to work this week.
As for next week, he said leaders would decide that later.
The governor says he will continue to show up at his office in the Capitol, waiting for lawmakers to "do their job."
State Sen. Jay Costa joined the "KDKA Morning News" to comment on Wolf's action on the budget.
"What the Governor did do was make sure that we have sufficient revenue to fund the entire budget, he had to do something that was going to bring [both Democrats and Republicans] back to the table to continue to negotiate, to continue to figure out how we're going to pay for the full budget that landed on his desk," he said. "As such he ended up reducing the school district lines and corrections lines down to a six months [from 12] budget to force us to come back to negotiate those items."
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