The average Pennsylvanian may not notice, but the commonwealth has lost the ability to spend money.
While that may elicit cheers from certain sectors, the lack of a state budget does have consequences.
Of course, the situation is hardly new. This is the seventh straight year Pennsylvania has failed to meet the June 30 deadline to craft a spending plan for the coming year. All of them have been during the administration of Gov. Ed Rendell.
We suppose it’s no surprise the trend continued this year. After all, the current world economic crisis has stressed the commonwealth’s finances, requiring tough decisions in terms of taxes and spending. If the state can’t come up with a timely budget during reasonably good economic times, what chance did it have now?
But we find ourselves wondering how seriously Harrisburg’s leadership approached this matter. Publicly, precious little has happened in terms of the budget.
While Rendell has crafted multiple rounds of cuts over the course of the year — in an effort to stem the tide of red ink — Pennsylvania is still looking at a budget deficit of around $3 billion.
And it wasn’t until June 16 that Rendell got around to proposing a 16 percent increase in the state’s personal income tax, from 3.07 to 3.57 percent. Is that really when he came up with the idea?
Yesterday Rendell advised Pennsylvanians not to expect a new budget soon, as he and legislative leaders hold discussions. But the governor and lawmakers are just now going through the budget line by line. Isn’t it a little late in the game to be doing that?
Meanwhile, nothing much has happened with the budget in the Legislature. The Republican-controlled Senate passed a no-tax budget that was more show than substance. House Democrats haven’t done even that.
In a sense, the lack of timely action on the budget, year after year, symbolizes the quality of leadership in Harrisburg. A disciplined, accountable operation wouldn’t allow this to happen.
And these are the guys who — a few years ago — thought they were deserving of a big pay raise on top of their regular cost-of-living increases.
The most immediate impact from Pennsylvania’s missing budget will be state employees who continue working, yet will receive no paychecks. The low-interest loans Harrisburg is helping to arrange for these employees won’t be quite the same thing.
And, as the budget delay drags on, the pain could be felt elsewhere — as state aid to municipalities dries up. Even private businesses may be impacted, if they are in the practice of selling goods and services to a government that can no longer pay its bills.
Eventually, some sort of compromise will be reached and Pennsylvania will have a new budget. We hope the people of the commonwealth remember that serious budget discussions weeks and months ago would have produced a timely spending plan.
