July 10th, 2009

Yesterday, the House GOP announced their glee that the personal income tax increase was clearly dead, as the House Democrats agreed they couldn’t muster enough votes for the 16% increase Rendell had proposed to help balance the budget.

Meanwhile, the House Democrats announced that they would bring the Senate Republican passed budget (SB 850) –which they hate – to the floor for a vote.  In order to put SB 850 into balance without a tax increase, however, an additional $1.7 billion in cuts will need to be made.  By passing this budget, the Democrats hope to show just how draconian the Senate budget bill would be and expect a public outcry that will send the Senate Republicans back to the negotiation table, reports The Morning Call.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that House Democrats hope to pass the Senate’s budget bill as is and send it to Gov. Rendell out of balance.  Rendell can then use his line-item veto power to cut $1.7 billion from the budget to force negotiations on a supplemental spending plan to fill in the gaps later.  This will prevent state workers from going without a full paycheck, which would occur on July 17 if nothing is passed.

Either way the House Dems are going to give Republicans exactly what they have been asking for and hope for the public to be just as dissatisfied with the massive spending cuts as they were with a tax increase.  We can only wait and see what happens…

Read more in the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Patriot-News.