Newspaper: Rendell budget built on a house of cards

Here's what The Mercury says about the 2008-09 General Fund budget recently signed by Gov. Ed Rendell:

This budget, for all its positive result, was built on a sham. Budget negotiators tapped surpluses and postponed certain payments to free up more than $500 million that helped avert deeper spending cuts.

While Rendell and budget proponents say the plan is built on economic factors that are stronger in Pennsylvania than in other states, those strong sources of revenue are tanking, meaning that the gap between Pennsylvania's newly approved spending figure and its tax collections could be widening.

And conventional wisdom says that using one-time cash grabs — such as scrapping a $138 million statutory transfer of money into the state's "rainy day" budgetary reserve — simply delays a need to cut spending or raise taxes to balance the budget, wrote Marc Levy of The Associated Press in an analysis last week.

The process, like so much in Harrisburg, smacks of an attempt to look good to win votes instead of a well-thought-out strategy to improve conditions in this commonwealth.

The budget approved last week offered the promise of some good things, but they will come with a price.

We suggest that price should be levied against legislators by holding them accountable at the polls. After all, if business continues as usual in Harrisburg, the citizens will be paying later.

Read the full editorial in The Mercury.