Tell Senate to Stay at Budget Table, Enact Sustainable Plan

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October 5, 2009

Pennsylvania Senate Republican leaders signaled Monday that they will abandon a $27.945 billion budget agreement announced more than two weeks ago and work with Senate Democrats to draft an alternative budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

This move will set back the budget process procedurally and substantively, putting many essential services at risk as community providers struggle to keep staff on payroll and their doors open to Pennsylvania families and children.

We need your help. The budget stalemate is approaching Day 100. Tell your Senator it’s time to return to the negotiating table and craft a sustainable budget and revenue plan.

The House of Representatives has approved a state budget revenue plan that will achieve that goal. It will:

  • Eliminate the proposed sales tax expansion to live performances, the arts and museums.
  • Eliminate the proposed tax on small games of chance run by VFWs, firehouses, churches and other nonprofit groups.
  • Add a severance tax on natural gas production, bringing Pennsylvania in line with most other energy-producing states.
  • Add an excise tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco, bringing Pennsylvania in line with every other state in the nation.
  • Preserve other revenue measures, including a delay in a business tax phase-out, an increase in the cigarette tax rate and various one-time revenue and fund transfers, to balance the 2009-10 state budget.

Read about other revenue measures included in the budget plan.

The House plan will set Pennsylvania on a more sustainable revenue path while preserving essential services for families, children, seniors and Pennsylvania's most vulnerable citizens.

Some reports indicate that a new Senate budget plan could make additional cuts to the $27.945 billion plan, with the lion’s share of those cuts coming out of the Department of Public Welfare. This would be on top of hundreds of millions in cuts made already in this process.

Tell Senators that Pennsylvania cannot sustain any more service cuts. Tell them to enact the sustainable revenue plan enacted by the House. Your calls to Senators could tip the balance in support of a sustainable budget that preserves essential services and ends a budget impasse that is hurting Pennsylvanians.

Call your Senator today to ask them to support a natural gas severance tax and an excise tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco. Tell them that you would much rather bring Pennsylvania in line with most other states by assessing taxes on the tobacco and natural gas industries rather than putting a tax on VFWs, volunteer fire companies, churches, museums and nonprofit arts centers.

CLICK HERE for a list of state Senators. (You can scroll down the list to find your Senator or search by zip code in the upper right hand corner.)