Gov. Tom Wolf visited Allentown on Wednesday in his first stop to present his new budget proposal, a day after sharing it with lawmakers.
He touted what he calls an innovative approach to keeping sales and personal income taxes flat while maintaining services and beginning to build back up the state’s rain day fund reserve.
“Yesterday what I did is stood up and said I’m going to do budgeting differently in Pennsylvania than we have ever, ever done and I’m not sure any state has ever done it this way,” Wolf said during the appearance at the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters’ new Carpenter’s Training Center in the city.
Wolf’s Fiscal Year 2017-18 budget, due to be passed by the Legislature by June 30, seeks $1 billion in tax increases, including what the administration views as loopholes in taxes on sales, corporate profits and insurance premiums. About $290 million of that would come from a new severance tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling that, he allowed, would be passed on to consumers in Pennsylvania and other states that benefit from the gas production.
“This is a resource that lies beneath our feet,” said Wolf, a first-term Democrat who plans to seek re-election in 2018. “People are taking it out and using it and people who use that actually ought to pay for that. That gets embedded in the price.”
In closing a $3 billion deficit, the $32.3 billion budget also includes $2 billion in spending cuts, efficiency steps and revenue sources that do not involve raising taxes.
Republican lawmakers from the Lehigh Valley said they were encouraged by the governor’s approach and looked forward to vetting it by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.
‘Devil’s in the details,’ Valley Republicans say on Wolf’s budget
In hosting the governor, the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters got to show off its new apprentice education center that had its grand opening about a month ago at 1818 Vultee St., off Lehigh Street near Queen City Airport. Students who are already working in their trade get a debt-free education valued at about $50,000 apiece, thanks to union dues that cover the cost, council officials said. The council hopes to education about 100 apprentices a year at the center, said council representative David Gannon.
The center receives no state funding, Wolf noted.
“What goes on here is a really a great deal for Pennsylvania,” he said. “You leave here with a good job, a good family-sustaining job and that is the best public policy we could do.”
Wolf’s office says his administration has created or retained more than 30,000 jobs in the Lehigh Valley, leveraged more than $848 million in outside funding and provided direct funding of more than $100 million.
Going forward, according to his office, Wolf proposes:
Partnering with Pennsylvania’s research universities and Industrial Resource Centers to accelerate manufacturing technology advancement and adoption and to foster manufacturing innovation and commercialization.
Creating a new apprenticeship grant program to ensure workers can receive training aligned to business workforce needs, funded with revenue recovered from companies that fail to live up to previous commitments made when they received state assistance.
Investing $5 million in a manufacturing training-to-career grant program to partner with technical programs and community colleges to develop new training programs that align with their workforce needs.
Wolf said his budget does not reduce any services, and increases funding for education and human services. It also ends the state’s reliance on “smoke and mirrors”: tapping into Treasury funds to cover costs as needed and leaving the state’s rainy day fund at a paltry $245,000, he said. He proposes a course to grow the savings to nearly $500 million by 2022.
“Basically what I’m trying to do is balance our budget, live within our means, not raise taxes and continue to do the things that matter to all of us: invest in education, invest in jobs, invest in the things that make people like you want to come here, learn what you’re learning and do the things that you’re doing, but I want you to do them right here in Pennsylvania,” he told the audience Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
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