Pay back agencies that had to borrow
If a state budget is ever passed for the current fiscal year, there is a high priority piece of legislation which must accompany it: a provision to pay every dime of the costs that have been incurred by social service agencies and public schools that were forced to borrow in order to continue operating as state funds dried up.
In their intransigence, state Republicans and Democrats, including Gov. Tom Wolf, have served to conspire to harm the entities which provide essential services to an untold number of Pennsylvanians. It is due to the malfeasance and dereliction of duty of our “leaders” that the organizations have had to, or will have to seek funds to continue operating.
The path to compromise has been clear since before the ignored June 30 deadline to pass a budget: enact a Marcellus Shale extraction tax; increase funding for education by at least several hundred million dollars; privatize alcohol sales; enact pension reform; and eschew any broad-based tax increase that would harm the middle class. Both sides talk of moving Pennsylvania forward as they push it backward. Innocent people should not have to suffer for their outrageous unwillingness to do their jobs.
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper St. Clair