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…

Take a look:

His statewide job approval is 39 percent. In Philly it’s 62 percent.

Statewide, only 33 percent of voters say he’s handling the economy well. In Philly the number is 65 percent.

Statewide, just 28 percent like his state budget efforts. In Philly, 59 percent side with His Edness.

A slim majority of city voters (51 percent) – while living in the highest-taxed city in America and facing the prospect of an increased sales tax – support Ed’s proposed 16 percent increase in the state personal-income tax.

Statewide, only one-third of folks support the hike, according to a poll of 1,173 Pennsylvania voters released yesterday.

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.

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.

Those that were in the meeting say a lot of time was spent going over items in the Dept. of Welfare’s budget.  While some concessions were made, the parties did not arrive at a deal — and so the negotiations continue.  No budget meeting is set for today, however.

In the news:

In The Patriot-News: State employees brace for the worst by saving money to pay their bills while going unpaid.

State budget cut-backs could hurt at the county level, says The Morning Call.

Columnist John Baer’s thoughts on the king-less budget process.

Eric Heyl from the Trib-Review thinks that the lack of budget again shows incompetence of the governor and the Legislature.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi writes about the need to pass a budget without a tax hike in The Patriot-News. 

Read more about the budget, or lack thereof, in the Inquirer, The Tribune Democrat,  the Altoona Mirror and the Intelligencer Journal.

The Patriot-News reports:

Rendell exerted that leadership when he introduced his budget in February, calling on state lawmakers to agree to new taxes on tobacco, gas wellheads and video poker gaming in state taverns. He set out an aggressive agenda for continued education spending, using federal stimulus money for early education, basic education and community colleges.

In the past few weeks, in response to a Senate budget that Rendell has called a “nonstarter” and “draconian,” he has enlisted agency chairs in public relations campaigns to try to drum up citizen unrest toward the GOP plan. State parks would be closed. Educational programs in public schools would be eliminated.

“We’re fortunate to have a governor who is exceptionally knowledgeable about both politics and policy,” Ardo said.

“As the Democratic standard-bearer, he represents the ideals that the party shares and, consequently, has the support of most Democrats,” Ardo said.

***

 Even some Pennsylvania Republicans admit it’s not such a bad thing that Rendell uses the force of his convictions to further his agenda.

“You look at what’s happening in California [where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the legislature are battling a massive $42 billion debt] and New York, you think, ‘Jeez, things could be a whole lot worse,’” said state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre County, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman.

 ”The governor uses the bully pulpit pretty well. He knows how to make a case for his ideas. He’s very good at that. He concerns himself a lot with public relations, taking his case to the people,” Corman said.

Lines are drawn: If you rely on state services and Republicans prevail, prepare to perish; if you pay state taxes and Democrats win, prepare to pay even more. The gap portends a summer of listening to gasbags.

And taxes?

GOP leaders have said no, not even Ed’s proposed new taxes on tobacco and energy, and especially no expansion of general taxes on sales or income.

But now a personal-income-tax hike is floating around, and Corman (who doesn’t like the idea) tells me, “I’m not one who takes everything off the table.”

Meanwhile, Democrats say, “Oh, it’s only as a last resort,” which is code for “Grab your wallets, kids, a tax hike is coming.”

A 1 percent increase in the state’s 3.07 percent PIT – it was 2.8 percent when Ed took office – would bring in $3 billion.

(Maybe somewhere in the process, someone can explain: (a) how so many families go year after year without increased income – and sometimes less income – yet manage to make ends meet, while government spends more every year no matter what; and (b) if so many government programs do such good and needed work, why it seems that the needs never lessen.)

 ***

Rendell proposed a $29 billion spending plan in February. It awaits House action. The Senate budget is $27 billion. Both are probably more than the state has to spend – which is why a tax hike is coming.

Oh, and because it’s easier than doing the work required to make cuts that don’t harm the truly needy, or selling off assets such as the anachronistic State Store system, or giving back hundreds of millions of dollars in legislative slush funds.

Plus, since lawmakers give themselves annual automatic pay raises large enough to cover a little PIT-hit, hey, why not?

I suppose it’s possible that both sides will agree soon to act in the best interests of the people and produce a budget combining minimal hurt to those reliant on state service and minimal hits to those funding such service.

Possible, that is, somewhere other than in the Land of Low Expectations.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:

The governor declined to give details about the additional spending cuts he will propose next week, but said they would balance the budget without requiring an increase in the personal income tax or other major levies.

“Right now, I don’t think so,” he said, when asked if an income tax increase was possible. But he agreed state revenues continue to fall short of expectations.

Mr. Rendell repeated his call for a tax on smokeless tobacco products and cigars, saying Pennsylvania is the only state without such a levy.

“It would be crazy not to tax that. The public supports it,” he said. He also wants to increase the state’s cigarette tax by 10 cents per pack.

***

Meanwhile, the administration and Republicans clashed yesterday on the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, which Mr. Rendell wants to increase by $8 million next year, but Republicans want to keep at this year’s level.

There are now 193,000 children enrolled, but Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario fears that number could decrease by 12,000, through attrition, without additional funding; when youths turn 18 they must leave the program. Failure to provide additional state aid could also cost the state nearly $17 million in federal CHIP aid, he said, and could cause a waiting list to form for the first time in years.

“When you think about the payoff of children getting the coverage they need early in life and succeeding, and all the benefits that gives to society, this is not one of the programs that ought to be a target for the budget-cutting process,” he said.

Senate Republicans defended their proposal to keep CHIP at its 2008-09 level. Senate GOP spokesman Erik Arneson said that if a waiting list develops, a supplemental budget bill could be passed.

Staff for House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans had hinted that an income tax increase would be “the smartest way” to reduce a predicted $3.2 billion budget deficit, but Evans was not yet willing to introduce it.

After announcing a $10 million bridge rehabilitation in Rochester, Beaver County, the governor lashed out at the $27.3 billion budget drafted by Senate Republicans as a “non-starter from the beginning … just a bunch of ideological posturing.” It did not include a tax increase, but Rendell said it “eviscerated” too many development initiatives.

Rendell, a Democrat, said he would announce hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to his own $29 billion budget proposal next week, but emphasized he wouldn’t touch funding for programs that create jobs.

“We have to get as lean as we can without hurting the economy,” he said. “I won’t let any major cuts happen on things that are economic development projects. You don’t cut stuff like that at a time like this.”

“The Legislature is not cutting the Commonwealth’s budget; the recession and reduced state tax revenue is cutting the budget. If we expect about $25 billion in revenue, and we have about another $2.3 billion in federal stimulus relief funds, then we have only $27.3 billion to spend.

“Even Governor Rendell’s budget proposes dramatic cuts to various education programs, health and welfare, as well as to many economic and community development programs. The Democrat budget shifts program funding to pay for their pet projects, yet actually increases overall spending.”

***

“If the Democrats want to spend more money than we have, they will need to introduce a funding plan to match their spending plan. They need to show all of Pennsylvania how they want to pay for their budget.”