July 14th, 2009

Early yesterday evening House Democrats voted their own $29.1 billion budget proposal out of the House Appropriations Committee.  The Democrats proposal sets up a free standing $1.2 billion higher education fund but includes no such funding source for the account, reports The Morning Call.

Republicans dismissed the proposal as theatrics intended to force a tax increase, as House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans said he was open to any legislative proposals to fund the higher education account, including an income tax increase or legalization of video poker at bars.

The Appropriations Committee also voted the Senate Republicans $27.3 billion budget out of committee, but gave it a “negative recommendation”

The two sides finished Monday much as they began it: more than $1 billion apart in their respective budget proposals, and with four days remaining before tens of thousands of state employees begin receiving partial paychecks.

”This caucus is not going to raise the personal income tax,” said Rep. Mario Civera, R- Delaware, the committee’s ranking Republican. ”This was a sham. All of it was the biggest sham in Pennsylvania.”

Other rank-and-file Republicans groused that they were given the Democrats’ budget plan just minutes before they were to vote on it in the Appropriations Committee.

The general fund budget, which operates the rest of state government, would be funded without a tax increase. It would rely instead on a mix of existing revenue streams, including the draining of the state’s $750 million Rainy Day Fund savings account and federal stimulus money.

Pennsylvania ended the 2008-09 fiscal year with a $3.25 billion shortfall. Under House rules, a vote on the budget that breaks off higher education may not come for at least two weeks, due to to house rules.

Read more about the House Dems budget in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.