Newspaper: Legislative agenda starts with budget crisis

There will be lots of unfinished business on the Legislative agenda when the Pennsylvania Legislature returns from its six-week holiday vacation.

At the top of the list is the budget crisis the Legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell created when they approved a bloated $28.3 billion General Fund budget last July, says The Pottstown Mercury.

From an editorial in today's edition:

Twenty-seven new members of the House of Representatives will be sworn in on Tuesday in Harrisburg as a new legislative session gets under way.

Once again, state taxpayers will be watching to see if lawmakers can accomplish long-overdue reform in the property tax.

But before legislators can even think about tackling reform, they will be dealing with the immediate problem of the $1.6 billion budget deficit.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.