It dawned me at one point in last night's 'Live From the Newsroom' show that Delaware County is lucky in that it has two of the most powerful politicians in Pennsylvania among its midst.
And they were sitting on our makeshift set last night to talk about something a lot of people are talking about these days - the Pennsylvania Legislature and the way it puts together a state budget each year.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9, of Chester, and state Rep. Bill Adolph, R-165, of Springfield, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, joined Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164, of Upper Darby, and Rep. Joe Hackett, R-161, of Ridley, for a spirited discussion. If you missed the show you can catch the replay here.
What did I learn? Well, for one, I have been scratching my head for weeks now trying to figure out how a Republican governor (that would be Tom Corbett), with GOP majorities in both the Senate and House, manages to get so little done.
Corbett, who desperately needed a couple of success stories to bolster his tanking poll numbers, challenged the Legislature to deliver a budget that included three huge items on his agenda: liquor privatization; funding for mass transit; and a cure for the state's ballooning public employee pension deficits.
The pension issue - what Corbett refers to as a ticking time bomb that is something of a 'tapeworm' in the budget process - was the first to go. Legislators kicked that one to the curb to be dealt with in the fall.
That left liquor privatization and transit funding.
Interestingly enough, both Pileggi and Adolph made it pretty clear that no one in Harrisburg - perhaps outside of Corbett - was expecting these issues to be included under the July 1 deadline for delivering a fiscal plan.
They weren't wrong.
The budget got done. Liquor privatization and transit funding did not. They will roll over to the fall.
These two huge issues got intertwined in a way only Harrisburg can imagine, with Pileggi getting all 27 Republican senators to back a liquor plan, only to see the whole thing evaporate when the House balked at transit funding. There were two sets of problems with the transit bill in the House: GOP members who did not like the notion of what certainly appeared to be a tax hike that would cause a big increase in the price of gas at the pumps; and Democrats who were upset at seeing the amount of money for mass transit decreased.
So neither got passed.
Adolph confirmed the House will go back into session on Monday to sign off on the Fiscal Code, which is needed to actually sign off on the spending included in the budget. That measure also is expected to address the still-in-limbo rescue package for the ailing Philadelphia schools.
As for Corbett? He's desperately trying to put lipstick on a pig, saying it's still early in the game, lauding the progress made, including the House actually passing a liquor bill, and saying he is looking forward to getting something accomplished in the fall. That's a bit different tune that he was crooning a week ago, when he said it would be "unacceptable" to see a budget plan on his desk that did not include deals on his key agenda items.
If you're worried about Corbett's political future, I think you have company. But don't expect anyone other than the governor at the top of the GOP ticket in 2014. Pileggi, who is thought to be a potential statwide candidate himself at some point, flatly said he expected Corbett to run and be the endorsed Republican candidate.
As for liquor privatization and transit funding? Those will wait for the fall. I actually think something will get done on transit funding before the liquor bill. It's probably more important, even if no one really talks about it. Everyone - especially newspaper editors - likes to talk about the insane way this state deals with the sale of alcohol. I still don't think it's getting done anytime soon.
My thanks to the panel - Pileggi, Adolph, Davidson and Hackett. It was a good show.
Almost as good as the one out in Harrisburg.
Comments