Yes, Pennsylvania, There Is a Budget Impasse – Here’s Why

The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that it exists.

Unfortunately, as it relates to Pennsylvania’s nearly three-week-long budget impasse, Pennsylvania’s House Democrats remain in denial.

In the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, Democratic House Majority Leader Matt Bradford claimed, “There is no budget impasse.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the blame for this situation rests with Rep. Bradford and the Pennsylvania House Democrats.

Before the budget deadline, it was well-publicized that the Senate Republican majority and Gov. Josh Shapiro had reached an agreement that included a provision that would provide students attending the lowest-performing 15% of schools with state-sponsored scholarships to attend the school of their choice.

This was something Republicans in the General Assembly had been pursuing for some time, and it was also a significant campaign priority of Gov. Shapiro. But a robust pressure campaign by special interests led House Democrats to abandon their governor and the deal he made, tanking the budget.

That’s a microcosm of what legislating with a Democratic majority in the House has been like.

Before it blew up, the agreement for this scholarship program between Gov. Shapiro and the Republican-controlled Senate reflected the kind of work that can be done when Republicans and Democrats work together to advance shared priorities that put the people of Pennsylvania first.

Unfortunately, the Democratic majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives put partisanship over Pennsylvanians and silenced reasonable Republican voices, inevitably ensuring that the fiscal year would start without a spending plan in place and leaving ambitious, bipartisan goals by the wayside.

The problems have only continued in the weeks following.

As the blame game went on, and House Democrats forced Gov. Shapiro to promise to veto one of his own priorities, the Democratic caucus has refused to work with Republicans to advance other needs.

Republicans brought legislation to fund state-related universities, looking to continue our work bringing transparency and accountability to these institutions while asking them to hold the line on tuition increases in exchange for more state funding.

House Democrats refused to talk to us about that until the first week of July.

A recent news story underscored the importance of subjecting institutions like Penn State to Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law so that they can be answerable to Pennsylvania taxpayers, Pennsylvania families, and Pennsylvania students who fund their ability to operate.

With the budget impasse turning into a fiscal quagmire, House Democrats forced one of their members to resign, sabotaging their own majority and signaling that they have no interest in returning to Harrisburg to complete budget work until the end of September.

House Republicans have long said that we are one reasonable Democrat away from doing great things for Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder to find any reasonable member on the other side of the aisle.

Meanwhile, House Democrats continue to tweet about being “on summer break” and wish-casting an alternate reality where they are somehow the heroes of this budget story.

Pennsylvanians deserve better.

Republicans in the General Assembly – and the House, in particular – have worked across party lines this session, and in past sessions, to get things done for Pennsylvania. We’ve offered plenty of examples for House Democrats to learn from to break the ongoing budget impasse for the benefit of the people of Pennsylvania.