Governor Rendell urges lawmakers to pass spending plan early

By: Scott Detrow

Three months ahead of Pennsylvania’s budget deadline, Governor Rendell is urging lawmakers to do everything they can to pass the spending plan early. WHYY’s Scott Detrow asseses reaction from a top Republican.

By: Scott Detrow

Three months ahead of Pennsylvania’s budget deadline, Governor Rendell is urging lawmakers to do everything they can to pass the spending plan early. WHYY’s Scott Detrow assesses reaction from a top Republican.

Transcript:
Rendell says stalling won’t make the General Assembly’s tough budget decisions any easier.  Even though the final vote typically isn’t held until after the June 30 deadline, Rendell says he’s hoping lawmakers will start working on this year’s plan as soon as possible.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says that sounds good to him, but argues it’s the governor, not the legislature, that typically causes delays.

Pileggi: “The governor over past years has very clearly stated publically that he’d rather have a budget done later than June 30 and have it contain things that he believed were important to him, than have it done on or before June 30 without containing those items that he thought were important.”

Pileggi says any new tax proposals  may be a major sticking point between the GOP-controlled Senate and the Democratic House. Rendell says he’s setting aside time every two weeks to discuss budget matters with lawmakers.  He says as the deadline approaches, he’ll hold those sessions more and more frequently.

Listen:
Click on the play button below or right click on this link and choose “Save Link As” to download. [audio: reports20090316spending.mp3]