Irma’s Landfall / State Budget Options

Just as Texans are coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Floridians are hunkering down as Hurricane Irma grinds up the state.  Smart Talk will talk about the cleanup efforts both states will be facing with Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster Services in Lancaster County.

We’ll also hear from two people with Pennsylvania ties living in Florida now.  Both dodged the storm without major damage but will describe what they see around them.

Also, a group of conservative state House members have devised a budget plan. “The Taxpayer’s Budget” proposes to shift funds around to close the budget gap without raising taxes.  State Representatives Dan Moul of Adams County and Seth Grove of York County will join Smart Talk to parse out the details of their plan and discuss other budget options.

emails

– Raiding the restricted revenue accounts is robbing Commonwealth citizens of badly needed services. Restricted means that these funds can only be spent on specific services. Which Pennsylvania citizens are going to suffer?

It is cowardice in refusing to face the fact that Pennsylvania needs a revenue increase to carryout essential services to its citizens. We have endured so many budget cuts in recent years, there is nothing left to cut. We have a 25% vacancy rate in my agency without the resources to refill. Services to the citizens now take weeks, instead of days.

Courage is doing the right thing in the face of unpopularity.                               – Tom, Carlisle

– Your guests keep talking about using money from “checking accounts” within the state. This is an incorrect use of “laymen’s terms”. These are not checking accounts, they are savings accounts. These “conservatives” are going through the State’s living room sofa looking for spare change under the cushions. They are burning the furniture to heat the house. 

This is the group who had 1.3 billion dollars in the bank when Governor Corbett took office and after 4 years of their balanced budgets, there was only 300 million dollars left in the bank. These guys are not good at math or properly describing the State budget. They are good at “smoke and mirrors”.

If the Legislature wants to spend the money in the budget that they passed, they have to also fund it, not mortgage our children’s future.           – Lee, York

- Will this plan improve the Pa credit rating which at the current rate, is adding to our debt?   – Terry

- Why are we talking about raiding state agency funds to cover the budget shortfall? Even if it’s perfectly legal and workable, what about next year? And after that? We can’t raid savings forever.                         – Michael