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Corbett’s agenda creeps ahead, but questions remain

4 min read
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HARRISBURG – State lawmakers signaled Tuesday they are moving ahead with two of Gov. Tom Corbett’s top priorities – raising billions for transportation projects and slashing public pension costs – though serious questions about both remain.

The Senate Transportation Committee approved a $2.5 billion transportation bill, underwritten primarily by an increase in a wholesale gas tax that is expected to be passed on to drivers at the pump. The 13-1 committee vote brought together urban Democrats and conservative mid-state Republicans in support of a bill being touted as a key public safety initiative with the potential to boost hiring.

Meanwhile, key GOP lawmakers said they will introduce Corbett’s pension-overhaul plan in separate but similar House and Senate bills – three months after he unveiled the proposal – in spite of resistance from key GOP leaders and vocal opposition from Democrats and employee unions.

The plan would reduce future pension benefits for more than 370,000 current state and school employees, beginning in 2015, to save about $12 billion over 30 years.

Corbett, Sen. Mike Brubaker of Lancaster County and Rep. Chris Ross of Chester County said unless drastic measures are taken, the unfunded liability of the state’s two major pension funds will reach $65 billion by 2018, forcing spending cuts or tax increases.

“It’s time for us to act,” Brubaker said at a news conference. “If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Sen. Don White, R-Indiana, called the transportation funding bill perhaps the state’s most important legislation in years.

“Four years ago, Gov. Rendell drove a bus through my district and announced at every stop in the 41st District that I have the worst roads and bridges per capita of any other senatorial district in the state of Pennsylvania,” White told the packed committee hearing room. “I was with him then, and … in my area, the effect is going to be just huge.”

After two years of prodding by lawmakers, Corbett’s newfound support for raising taxes to support transportation earned him a backhanded compliment Tuesday from Sen. John Wozniak, the transportation committee’s ranking Democrat. Wozniak, D-Cambria, noted that Corbett as a candidate in 2010 had signed a pledge from a Washington, D.C.-based group to oppose any tax increase.

“I know that may have been a very difficult decision because he’s a man of honor and to sit there and shift his allegiance to Pennsylvania … was a very, very large step,” Wozniak said.

Still, the Senate’s transportation bill is larger than the $1.8 billion Corbett initially sought, and House Republican leaders are cool to such a large gas tax increase.

Wozniak and committee Chairman John Rafferty, R-Montgomery, acknowledged that voting for a gas tax increase will be difficult for many lawmakers and that the bill may need changes to get it through both chambers.

The moves come as the Republican-controlled Legislature scrambles to wrap up work on a budget and Corbett’s major priorities by July 1.

Corbett’s proposed pension changes face challenges.

On Friday, Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said the Senate may limit the focus of any benefit cuts to new hires because of questions about the legality of Corbett’s more far-reaching proposal to freeze the benefits for all current employees and replace them with reduced benefits in 2015.

Unions have vowed to challenge Corbett’s proposal in court if it is approved by the Legislature. They and many lawmakers say changes approved in a 2010 law should be given more time to work. Those changes include a temporary reduction in the taxpayers’ share of pension costs and changes for new hires that reduced benefits and increased the retirement age to 65.

Mike Crossey, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union, traced the pension shortfall to underfunding by the state and school districts in prior years.

“Hardworking Pennsylvanians should not have their retirement earnings cut because of political irresponsibility,” Crossey said.

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