Tom Wolf has a few (not surprising) budget balancing suggestions for Pa.

The Democrat trying to unseat Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has his own views on how to balance the state budget. 

While campaigning in Philadelphia, Democratic candidate Tom Wolf said Pennsylvania’s budget crisis could be solved with just a few things. The key he said is enacting a tax on extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, better known as a severance tax. 

“I’ve called for a five percent severance tax, I know we have that right from a this could be a game changer for Pennsylvania’s economy,” Wolf said. “I know we have to do it right but it would give us hundreds of millions of dollars that we could use for Pennsylvania’s education.”

Wolf says he also would do some things Governor Corbett has refused to do. 

“I would expand Medicaid I’m not sure what the net savings to the commonwealth would be if we did that immediately but it would would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the net savings over what we are now spending on Medicaid.”

Governor Corbett has his own alternative to expanding Medicaid, called Healthy Pennsylvania, that he’s trying to secure approval from Washington to enact. He’s staunchly opposed to a severance tax, but says the “impact fee” he shepherded is helping towns and cities across Pennsylvania without hurting the natural gas industry.