July 31st, 2009

OK so the second part of that headline is only a guess, but hey, I could be right! 

So the budget conference committee met again yesterday, and again could not get past inane technical differences of opinion to be able to start delving into any real budget issues.  [Just a reminder, because it's easy to forget: the committee is supposed to be in charge of negotiating a state budget.]  It appears that the closest they got to talking dollar figures was when the panel’s Dems said they wanted to review the impact of the Republican’s proposed budget cuts that would affect school programs and human services, and the Repubs replied by saying that that would be pointless because the Dems haven’t yet showed how they would pay for the spending they want on those programs and services, and that they’re avoiding voting for the tax increase that they want. 

After seeing the progress a few hours into the committee’s meeting yesterday, Gov. Rendell was none too pleased.  He said, “This shouldn’t be theater. This shouldn’t be a circus. This shouldn’t be just trying to make points.  We need to get down and work on the very difficult choices we have to make.”

After hearing what Rendell said about them, the committee members’ faces turned red, they puffed their cheeks, and steam blew out their ears.  Then, they abruptly ended their meeting, and haven’t scheduled another one yet.

However, even though the committee isn’t meeting today, its co-chairs, (I think they’re co-chairs, anyway… I’m not exactly sure how the multi-hour discussion over that point ended) Rep. Dwight Evans and Sen. Dominic Pileggi, will meet with Rendell today to try to make some progress.

Also, it appears that the tree house will pull up its rope ladder from now on– I guess that the committee members aren’t happy with the press they’ve been getting by allowing the meetings to be public.

As for that stopgap budget that Rendell said he would ask for on Monday, it now seems like he might ask for it this weekend instead.