Pennsylvania Is Closed Until Further Notice
By GordonTaylor Posted in Breaking News — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A budget stalemate has caused Pennsylvania to furlough 24,000 workers and just about all services have been curtailed, save emergency services.
I has developed in to a partisan battle with a Democratic Governor and a republican controlled Senate.
From the AP:
Gov. Ed Rendell shut down the Pennsylvania government late Sunday over a budget stalemate with the Legislature that partly hinges on his energy plan for the state.
"I sincerely hope that this will be a one-day furlough, and I have reason for optimism," Rendell said at a news conference Sunday night, though he declined to be more specific.
Monday morning, the shutdown set in as the partisan battle of wills between the Democratic governor and Republicans who control the Senate entered the ninth day of the new fiscal year. Lacking an approved state budget, the state has lost the authority to spend money on nonessential services...
...The centerpiece of Rendell's energy plan would place a surcharge on electricity use for a fund for alternative energy programs and electricity conservation. Republican legislators and some Democrats oppose the surcharge and accused the governor of holding state employees hostage to force them to approve it.
"I can't believe that a man who would call himself governor would do this to state employees," said Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Republican.
With a $650 million dollar surplus, this seems a little silly to me. Ed Rendell (D), and former mayor of Philadelphia will not give in on his proposed energy policy, which seems to be the sticking point of the process.
It is essential because our elected elite think you do not know how to spend your own money wisely.
Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you. Washington Elected Elite
The government isn't commanded to do only "essential" tasks and to stay out of the rest. Besides, this is really a matter of defining the word "essential" - it requires a referent. In this case it does not mean "essential to the functioning of government" or "essential that government do this rather than the market."
In a case like this "essential" usually means "essential to public safety and health" - so police officers, public hospital doctors, and the like stay on duty. But others stay home (like the employees of the DMV, the election board, etc.). While I am no fan of the DMV, I don't think anybody would say that, because it is not "essential" it is an improper exercise of state authority to license drivers and register motor vehicles.
But only if the State Governor and legislators observe that "them smart and sophisticated people" in NYC and California try it first. It's what they do with emissions tests, seatbelt laws, and such.
Pennsylvania has been stuck in a rut since Attorney General Thornburgh was governor. (Not to imply that Milt Shapp was exactly dynamic, or anything, you know.)
Could this wake us up? No, the elections are too far away. We're stuck with the clowns we brought to the dance.
While I am no fan of the DMV, I don't think anybody would say that, because it is not "essential" it is an improper exercise of state authority to license drivers and register motor vehicles.
I think licensing and registration could go away tomorrow and we wouldn't be any worse off... but then they'd be missing out on that big honey pot of taxes and fees. That's all the DMV really exists to do... collect money for the state. The only reason it is annoying when the DMV is closed is because the state made it essential (through laws requiring you renew your licenses, pay your registration tax, etc), then denies that it is essential.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
as a constant reminder to the public that Government is not their friend.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
...running on Election Day, but not when the levees broke.
Priorities.
--furious
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
plenty of time to spend on whatever campaign there is to blame Republicans for this fiasco.
It's a pretty universal opinion that it's just King Ed and his Big Spending philosophy. Even the State Congress is holding out against him, and that's Dem controlled...
"It's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die, and then dies...
...But if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway. Dies, dies willing, knowing he can stop it, then...
Well, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"
Karen Eiffel, Stranger Than Fictiion
. . . I very sincerely hope that it stays shut down, for three or four months.
I'm sure that they will retroactively pay all those people for not working...
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
For not working or mucking up peoples lives. Its a good deal.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Got some more time for that traffic ticket, I guess.
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” Mark Twain
The jokes about "nonessential employees" are always fun, but the phrase usually has a legal meaning, at least in collective bargaining states such as PA. Usually it is police, fire, corrections, hospitals and other state residential care, sometimes a few others, e.g., some supervisors and managers.
More interesting is how the governor can keep any state function running if he has no budget at all. Most state constitutions require that there be a specific appropriation to support any executive branch expenditure. If the governor has no budget, he has no appropriation to support ANY expenditure, so he's trying to finesse this by spending from some pot of state cash reserves, itself technically illegal under the appropriation language of most constitutions and also under most state budget laws. I'm not intimately familiar with the situation, so they might have given him some authority or some specific appropriations, but if he really has no budget at all, he should have just shut down the whole government.
Somebody remarked upthread that the employees will just get a retro check, and they are probably right. Most state personnel laws and most labor agreements have all sorts of notice requirements and complex procedures before employees can be laid off or furloughed. It is unlikely that those would or could have been met, so it is likely that an ALJ or labor arbitrator would award back pay for the employees. Such an award would have a reasonable chance of being reversed by the state courts on constitutional grounds if properly argued, but no Democrat governor or AG would do it.
In Vino Veritas
The governer and legistlature reached an agreement last night and PA will be open for business today. As a state taxpayer, I was hoping they'd stay closed for a while. We might not have saved much on labor due to collective bargaining agreements, but it would at least have demonstrated how little we really need many state services.
Had it come to pass that there really was to be a shutdown of any duration, the governor and the unions would have just gone to the standard public employee union playbook. If the governor furloughed them at noon, they have mommies with breast cancer who'd just lost their insurance and whose house was about to be forclosed on crying on the 6PM news that very day. Then they'd start furloughing prisoners because there isn't enough staff to maintain security for "less violent" prisoners. Then we'd get a family who came to visit poor old Uncle Ed in the Looney Bin and found him with dirty diapers because there's not enough staff. Then we'd have a welfare mommy who's baby is starving because she didn't get her check and has no food. Then there's inevitably a fatal auto accident and the press would just love to speculate about whether it was caused by the lack of police patrols. Give them a couple or three days and they can make it look like civilized life has ended.
I never feared a real strike or a real government shutdown, even the best paid public employees live from paycheck to paycheck and the government can stand to be without them longer than they can stand to be without the government. The "virtual shutdown" that I described above was my greatest fear because I don't think there are many Republican politicians who have the guts and the communications skills to stand up to it.
In Vino Veritas
the state has lost the authority to spend money on nonessential services...
If the services are nonessential what the hell is the state (or federal government because they say the same thing) doing funding them in the first place. Just tell them not come back, to get real jobs and move on.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.