July 24th, 2009

On Monday the Senate took a carving knife to the House’s passed budget by creating an amendment that cut the proposal from $29.1 billion to $27.1 billion. 

The Senate then sent the amended version back to the House where the House voted to non-concur, with even some Republicans not approving the amendment.

Since then, informal budget talks have been going on between all the sides, and Rendell says he hopes to join these talks this weekend.  On Monday, a conference committee will be created to work out the differences.  The committee will have three members from each chamber, with two from the majority and one from the minority.   This means the committee will be an even 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rendell said yesterday that he was optimistic that these informal talks would bring about an agreeement, perhaps as early as this weekend.  That way the conference committee would only need to approve the proposal when they meet on Monday.  However, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati was not so confident, saying if Rendell refuses to take his income tax hike off the table there’s no way a budget will get done anytime this coming week.

Rendell said he could envision a budget without the income tax hike, but he still believes it is the fairest way to fill the 3.1 billion deficit.  So I guess we will all have to wait until Monday to see what talks bring about this weekend…