Are Republicans all talk in budget battle?

Brett Lieberman column in the Patriot News:

Table gaming may not be legal in Pennsylvania, except in the Legislature, where state leaders put on their best poker faces for the annual budget game.

Republican leaders, particularly in the Senate, where they’re still in charge, seem to be playing the same hand again.

Drawing a line in the sand like tough-talking Western gunslingers, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi are vowing to keep state spending under control. There’ll be no new taxes, they say, and they challenge Gov. Ed Rendell to test their resolve.

“There’s issues that we can compromise on with the governor, but we cannot compromise on our core beliefs,” Scarnati said yesterday.

Standing the line on taxes and spending are non-negotiable GOP values, he said.

“I don’t think anybody could expect us to compromise on our core values. If we do that, then what are we?” Scarnati asked.

“Your typical politician?” was my reply, which was met with awkward silence.

Though not without options, GOP leaders are under pressure from all sides.

Rendell is the cause of some of it, thanks in part to an ambitious populist agenda that promises health insurance for all, more money for education, protecting the environment and other goodies that have great appeal.

But to a greater degree, the Republican problem is a self-inflicted credibility gap.

Not withstanding the explosion of state spending during the Ridge years when a booming economy provided bountiful resources that made it easy for legislators to say ‘yes’ to new spending, it was the Republican-controlled General Assembly that went along with much of Rendell’s first-term agenda.

Many conservatives still seethe over the memory of former Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer calling Rendell’s budget the worst since former Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr.’s 1991 budget that raised taxes by nearly $3 billion, only to vote for the Rendell budget a couple weeks later.

Compromises like that allowed the Democratic governor to rightfully boast during last year’s election of having accomplished most of his 2002 campaign promises — and with a Republican legislature.

Now Republicans find themselves faced with another ambitious Rendell budget and plenty of doubts and doubters.

Having watched this hand played out at least four times, even many of their traditional friends are betting there’s more bluster than bite.

Conservatives, business leaders and veteran Capitol watchers wonder whether they will fold.

“That’s what the fear is of many including myself,” said Fred Anton, president & CEO of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.

“I think they are addicted to spending as much as Rendell is and they find it much more painful than he does to find the money to pay for the spending,” he said.

Recent projections of a $400 million provides another quandary for Republicans.

It provides a cushion to allow them to increase spending while holding the line on taxes, but that may come at a cost when they have to pay for programs and services and don’t have the luxury of tapping surpluses in future budgets.

Like the new sheriff in town, Scarnati boasts “We have a new leadership here in the Senate” and says the atmosphere in the General Assembly has changed.

Republicans are not looking for a confrontation with the governor, but they’re not going to be his complicit partners either, they say.

Yet as the clock ticks closer to the June 30 budget deadline, Republicans trying to regain credibility with a public that yearns for leadership desperately want to avoid a government shutdown.

“Without a doubt any government shutdown is viewed negatively on the Legislature,” Scarnati said.

Perhaps only among hard-core conservatives could a shutdown be seen as a victory of Republicans holding the line.