{"id":6567,"date":"2014-07-05T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=6567"},"modified":"2014-07-04T13:52:35","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T17:52:35","slug":"will-corbett-stand-up-to-the-legislature-on-pensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=6567","title":{"rendered":"Will Corbett stand up to the legislature on pensions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the governor plays this issue could decide the Nov. elections<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"TimesPoliticsUnusual-250x300\"<\/a>A wise attorney once told me, \u201cnever ask a question in court if you don\u2019t know what the answer will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears that Gov. Tom Corbett failed to adhere to that maxim when he hinted he would not sign the new $29.1 billion state budget passed by both houses of the legislature \u2014 unless the legislature took up his pension reform plan.<\/p>\n

Instead of spurring the legislature to action \u2014 and whether or not you agree that the Corbett hybrid plan is a perfect solution, it is a reasonable attempt to eventually address the issue, even if it offers little to no short-term benefit \u2014 the House shuffled the bill off to a committee briefly and then took off for the holiday, seemingly way more interested in fireworks and hot dogs back home than the governor\u2019s priorities. Maybe, they said, they\u2019ll take up the bill in the fall and that the governor should be a good little, and maybe irrelevant, man and just sign the budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Corbett faces a choice of looking like a wimp and essentially dooming himself to one-term in Harrisburg or the opportunity to redefine himself as a tough, no-nonsense leader willing to lay it out there to do what\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Were I advising him, I\u2019d tell him to veto the entire budget, tell the legislature he won\u2019t sign a budget until they take action on pension reform and hold them to it, through a hot, sticky, painful summer in Harrisburg. As the state legislature as a whole is about as popular as ingrown toenails, actually standing up to it and forcing it to do the people\u2019s work would earn Corbett a lot of points with voters \u2014 and he\u2019d get the benefit of making progress toward solving an actual problem, somewhat of a lost skill in Harrisburg these days.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s going to take such a grand gesture to change the rapidly growing narrative among legislative Republicans that Corbett is a lost cause and can be safely ignored, as appears to have happened this past week.<\/p>\n

Obviously, not one Republican legislator will go on the record saying this \u2014 or a whole lot else, other than to say the budget they passed is a good one and they hope that Corbett will eventually sign it. But the actions speak louder than any comment would: his own party thinks Corbett no longer matters.<\/p>\n

It also explains the budget document \u2014 a clear and somewhat dicey attempt to keep the budget down in anticipation of a Gov. Tom Wolf looking to raise taxes in 2015, likely at minimum, on shale gas extraction taxes and some forms of tobacco, and positioning the GOP legislature in the strongest negotiating position, albeit one that could still cost Republicans a number of seats in the fall.<\/p>\n

From here, it seems like a risky play \u2014 beyond openly defying a governor of their own party \u2014 and gives Democratic candidates a pretty strong cudgel:<\/p>\n

\u201cSen. (John) Rafferty (R-44) has once again passed a budget that prioritizes political convenience over the well-being of Pennsylvania\u2019s working families,\u201d Chester County Commissioner and state Senate Candidate, Kathi Cozzone, said. \u201cOnce again, Republicans in the legislature, led by Gov. Corbett, have passed a budget that ignores practical revenue sources like Medicaid Expansion and an extraction tax, in favor of one-time revenue that will only lead to a larger deficit down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that this isn\u2019t how we balance a budget in the county, and this isn\u2019t the right way to balance the budget in Harrisburg. We need real leaders who care more about their constituents and the future of Pennsylvania than they do about political convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ow. And get used to hearing more and more of that in southeast Pennsylvania legislative races.<\/p>\n

Making it worse, Republicans may be on the wrong end of a turnout wave, especially in suburban Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

There seem to be some rumblings of issues that could actually spark off-year Democratic voter turn out, the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling really seems to have touched a nerve on the left, an issue that many in the GOP would be wise not to underestimate. There seems also to be a groundswell of support for improving school funding in the southeast, as folks in Philadelphia seem to be getting traction in activating their Democrat or Democrat-leading neighbors in the surrounding suburban counties, as they battle to fund their school district.<\/p>\n

Lastly, if the legislature and the polls (another poll, this one from Franklin & Marshall this week shows Corbett down 22% to Wolf) show a hopeless race, it seems likely that GOP turnout will take a big hit, hurting down-ballot candidates for the legislature.<\/p>\n

What Corbett decides in the next couple of days could well decide the fall election. What he\u2019ll do is anyone\u2019s guess, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the governor plays this issue could decide the Nov. elections By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times A wise attorney once told me, \u201cnever ask a question in court if you don\u2019t know what the answer will be.\u201d It appears that Gov. Tom Corbett failed to adhere to that maxim when he hinted he would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7],"tags":[2145,294,1085,1086,4051],"class_list":["post-6567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-election-2014","tag-gov-tom-corbett","tag-legislature","tag-pensions","tag-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}