Reaction to Governor Corbett’s 2014-2015 budget speech

Guests: John Baer and John Micek

Last night Governor Tom Corbett unveiled his 2014-2015 budget plan for Pennsylvania, his fourth address to the joint session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The blueprint included investments towards public education – with an emphasis on preschool and K-12, job programs and health care. The commonwealth is facing a deficit of about $1 billion dollars, and the increasing rise of public employee pensions of about $610 million dollars may be temporary adjusted by less state and school contributions. Without any new tax proposals, the Governor is hopeful the recent new law approving small games of change will create new revenue, as he is pushing for the Pennsylvania Lottery to include bingo-style game, Keno. A Pennsylvania-tailored, Medicaid-type expansion was proposed, using federal money to help pay for hundreds of thousands of uninsured people, as long as they are looking for work and paying an income-based premium. As this is the last budget address of his term, Governor Corbett is running for a second term this fall – a new Franklin and Marshall poll shows public approval ratings at about 23 percent of Commonwealth voters think he’s doing an “excellent” or “good” job. We get reaction to and analysis from Philadelphia Daily News columnist JOHN BAER, and JOHN MICEK, editor of the editorial and opinion pages for The Patriot-News and PennLive.