My 2 Cents: Pa, the only state in the US without a Budget?

As I sit here thinking about why Pennsylvania is the ONLY state in the United States without a budget, I say to myself, don’t we have to go through this again in just 4 months?

If I understand this correctly, and I may not, the Politicians in Pa will need to start this process all over again in 4 months right? For the 2010 budget? They ARE working on the 2009 budget right now correct?

And I am sure they didn’t start that process on Jan 1, 2009, it probably started in 2008 sometime.

So my questions to the Politicians in Pa are this: How many of you have taken a trip this summer? How many of you are running for office? How many of you are spending time with YOUR families? While hard working people are not able to get paid because you can’t come to a consensus on the 2009 budget by September of 2009?

The real question is: Why isn’t the budget approved yet?

Isn’t the budget supposed to be approved within that year at least? I mean, how long does it take to actually approve a budget? Or is it that you can’t seem to agree on where the money is going because of personal agendas?

Here is my thought: Put all of the politicians in Pa on a profit sharing program and see how long it takes to get the budget approved each year. Think of all the CEO’s & VP’s out there running companies, right now, that have to approve a budget for their businesses or they can’t operate for the year. Or if they don’t spend right, they lose their job. That doesn’t happen in politics and I wonder why?

Want to know why all of the state workers didn’t get paid recently except for the Liquor Store & Lottery Employees? Because those 2 sections of government employees are profit makers, this is not a knock on those employees. Their labor directly results in a profit for the government. If all of the departments were viewed that way, everyone would get paid, but unfortunately for those not in those 2 departments, they don’t have the opportunity to generate much revenue.

Hey look, I am not saying it is easy to pass the budget, by any means. But lets face it, whomever is holding this up is causing hardship throughout the state and then we have to start all over again for 2010!

Now this particular issue does not affect me directly, I have no friends or family that work for the state and I don’t work for the state. But the bottom line is, somehow someone needs to give a little to get this budget passed or they will still be working on the 2009 budget in 2010.

This impasse is using valuable time that could be devoted to other subjects & issues. I guess maybe I just don’t understand it enough.

I challenge each Pa State Politician that is involved with the Budget Approval process to post a comment here and explain why the budget has not been passed for 8+ months. This newspaper allows open comments on this subject, just submit them below.

Just My 2 Cents.

John Henning – Editor – Pottstown Newspaper (Pottstown Herald)