Poor credit outlook for Pa.
HARRISBURG (AP) – Pennsylvania is getting more bad fiscal news.
New York-based Moody’s credit rating agency Friday slapped a negative outlook onto its rating for Pennsylvania’s $10.9 billion in general obligation debt.
Moody’s cites Pennsylvania’s 108-day partisan budget stalemate and the difficulty it said the state government is likely to have in closing its long-term deficit.
The deficit is a key point of contention in the stalemate between first-term Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled Legislature. A lower bond rating typically means higher borrowing costs.
All three major credit rating agencies each downgraded Pennsylvania’s bond rating last year after the state enacted a $29 billion budget that relied on $2 billion in one-time stopgaps to balance.
The negative outlook puts Pennsylvania in the bottom three of the 47 states rated by Moody’s.