Will voters remember the budget fiasco?

Will Pennsylvania voters remember the budget fiasco of 2009 when they go to the polls next year? All 203 members of the House and 25 of the 50 Senators will be up for re-election. These would be the very same legislators who missed the budget deadline by 101 days this year.

The cartoon by Randy Bish and the editorial below from The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says it all.

The state budget: A weaselly punt

And so, the Great Pennsylvania Budget Saga of 2009 has ended. After a 101-day impasse, the Keystone State finally has a spending blueprint for fiscal 2010. Woo-hoo and ding-dong and all that.

Some pols are slapping themselves on the back for avoiding a personal income tax increase and other tax hikes, a small improvement in how the Corporate Net Income Tax is calculated and a clampdown on legislators' tawdry little slush funds better known as WAMs, for "walking around money."

But there's really nothing to cheer about, reminds Matthew Brouillette, president of the Commonwealth Foundation think tank. The budget still "taxes too much, spends too much and puts Pennsylvania on an unsustainable path to the future."

There already are projections of a $1.6 billion budget deficit next year. The big elephant in the room, "pension reform," was left for another day. More diddling with the phaseout schedule of the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax means the state will continue to rob the private, expansion-fueling and job-creating investment pool.

Rep. Tim Krieger, R-Hempfield, one of the few bright lights in a Legislature full of dim bulbs, put it best: "Pretending Pennsylvania's fiscal situation is fine does not make it so."

The new budget is nothing but a weaselly punt. But the good news is that it's one that should come back to slap legislators just in time for the 2010 elections.