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First things first: Wolf should forgo a big splash on the next budget

First things first: Wolf should forgo a big splash on the next budget

In less than three weeks, as required by law and the state Constitution, Gov. Tom Wolf must submit to the Legislature his proposed operating and capital budgets for the 2016-17 fiscal year. Outrageous, right?

It’s mid-January, six and a half months past the deadline when a 12-month spending plan was supposed to have been enacted for 2015-16. How seriously can anyone take a budget proposal for the following year at this stage of the political game?

In interviews including one as recently as Tuesday, Mr. Wolf was still touting the so-called budget framework announced late last year as some meeting of the minds between the Democratic governor and legislative leaders of both parties in the House and Senate. Except it wasn’t.

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The framework had too many moving parts on the revenue side. The governor earlier had proposed a combination of increases in sales, income, natural gas and cigarette taxes. Leaders in the Senate seemed to favor a sales tax boost, House Democrats seemed inclined toward a hike in the state income tax, and House Republicans wanted property tax relief, pension reform and liquor privatization. Most of those provisions had fallen by the wayside by the time votes were cast.

It is beyond optimistic to think that the Legislature — where all 203 members of the House and half of the 50 senators face re-election — are going to vote yes on any big-ticket taxes that could come back to haunt them at the ballot box.

What must happen now is face-to-face, open-minded meetings between the governor and key legislators — even those involved in what appears to be an intra-party Republican squabble. The aim must be passage of supplemental appropriations to correct nearly $7 billion in line-item vetoes Mr. Wolf made to education, medical assistance and prison operations — not because he wanted those cuts, but because he wanted to force lawmakers back to the table while releasing funds for most state operations.

As for the 2016-17 budget, the law says the governor must propose department-by-department spending, projected revenue and the tax rates necessary to balance his proposal in early February. He is not obligated to make an hour-long speech, filled with his goals and priorities, in front of an assembly of the state House and Senate. In other words, he should meet his obligations under the law but forgo the dog-and-pony show on Feb. 9.

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That would signal that he is serious about getting back to the hard work that remains for this fiscal year first.

First Published: January 21, 2016, 5:00 a.m.

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