State budget needs a spending limit

Williamsport Sun-Gazette Editorial

As the state budget nears its supposed Saturday deadline for passage, the numbers tend to become blurred by political wrangling on all sides of the aisle.

The budget proposal is viewed differently depending on whether it is the governor talking, the House majority or House minority interests talking or any of the hundreds of lobbying interests affected.

But there are numbers that should outweigh political spin, regardless of who’s doing the spinning.

Spending numbers, for instance.

Since 1990, the state’s General Fund budget has increased from $12.4 billion to $26.1 billion. That’s more than double. Meanwhile, personal income has increased by only 25 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the nonpartisan Commonwealth Foundation.

There is only one way that type of spending increase can happen. It’s caused by a lack of fiscal discipline over the course of several administrations and with both major political parties having a turn at majority power.

Legislation has been introduced to limit the annual growth of state spending to the average percent change in personal income for the three preceding years or the average percent change in inflation plus the average percentage change in state population for the three preceding years.

In other words, the spending would be regulated according to the ability of average Pennsylvanians to pay the taxes to support the state’s operating budget.

Think how much differently current budget talks would have evolved had there been a set limit on how much spending would be allowed.

Lawmakers and the administration of Gov. Ed Rendell would be forced to make choices. For every new program suggested, however well intentioned, its fit in the budget would have to be determined.

We wonder if there would be the amounts of expenditures on “corporate welfare” and grants that have nothing to do with state government if they resulted in cuts in necessary state services.

The many stewards of our state budget over the past 16 years have not shown the ability to manage it with average Pennsylvanians in mind. Given that track record, legislative limits on spending are necessary.