• Font Size    

Most Popular Videos Featured On KDKA.com

Pittsburgh Festivities Kickoff Holidays
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Pa. Gov. Rendell Presents $29B Budget

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +   
Feb 4, 2009 6:10 pm US/Eastern

Pa. Gov. Rendell Presents $29B Budget

Reporting
Jon Delano
(KDKA) Balancing a $29 billion budget is always challenging, especially with a projected $2.3 billion deficit.

But it's really hard when 76,000 Pennsylvanians lost their jobs last year, meaning less revenue in income tax and more pay-outs in social service and medical assistance.

However, through a combination of budget cuts and selective tax increases, Governor Rendell thinks the state can weather the storm.

The pomp and circumstance of the Governor's annual budget address to the General Assembly quickly gave way to an economic reality.

"The worst economic crisis of our lifetime has dramatically re-ordered priorities in Washington, in Harrisburg and most important around the kitchen tables in our homes all across the commonwealth," Rendell told a joint session of the legislature.

Rendell, to balance the budget, said he had to cut one billion dollars in spending from 89 percent of the line item programs in his budget.

"In some cases, we are cutting terrific programs that perhaps we can restore when the economy recovers, but we just can't afford them today," said Rendell.

But it's not all spending cuts, Rendell said he wants to raise some taxes, too, like a 10 cent increase in the cigarette tax to a $1.45 a pack, a 3.6 cent tax on each cigar and a 36 cent-an-ounce tax on smokeless chewing tobacco.

And while this would not apply to Allegheny County, Rendell had this idea to help local governments in neighboring counties.

"I am proposing to give counties the ability to broaden their tax base by allowing them to impose a sales tax increase of up to one percent on top of the state sales tax and share 50 percent of those proceeds with our hard-pressed cities," said Rendell.

But perhaps Rendell's most controversial idea, legalizing and taxing video poker games, and using the money to give most students $7,500 in tuition to attend a community college or Pennsylvania state university.

But one local Republican said Rendell had only himself to blame for the budget squeeze.

"The reality is that we have spent far more than we should have over the last six years," said PA Rep. Mike Turzai, a McCandless Republican. "If we kept spending at the rate of inflation or below during the last six years, we would not be in the economic crisis that we're in today."

Whoever is to blame, it hardly matters now.

The good news, if there is any, is that the state sales tax, income tax and businesses taxes will not be going up.

Lawmakers hope that President Obama's economic recovery program will pump a couple billion dollars into Pennsylvania.

But both the Governor and legislators warned that they really can't count on that money to balance the state budget.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Featured Slideshows On KDKA.com

You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.

Politics

Top News Stories

© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.