Wolf keeps low profile in budget battle
HARRISBURG — Over the past six weeks, Gov. Tom Wolf has cut a pair of ribbons, hosted nearly a dozen roundtables and discussions on everything from tech jobs to protecting senior citizens from fraud, toured businesses and signed a half-dozen bills, his public schedule shows.
None of the events dealt with balancing the state budget.
As the battle over how to pay for Pennsylvania’s nearly $32 billion spending plan drags into its fifth week, the Democratic governor is trying a new tactic:
near invisibility.
Mr. Wolf has not issued any big, public warnings about the dangers of not having a timely budget, as he has in the past two years. Nor has he expressed even the slightest frustration over the breakdown in talks with the Republican-controlled Legislature. He hasn’t been spied walking into legislative offices or convening meetings with legislative leaders in the executive offices, either.
Both House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Marshall, have complained over the past few weeks that the governor has been disengaged.
“We haven’t had a whole lot of interaction with him directly for several months now,” Mr. Reed told reporters as he raced back and forth between offices during the thick of negotiations last month.
One thing is clear: Mr. Wolf has changed his approach, and people in the Capitol have noticed.
Mr. Wolf has said that he doesn’t negotiate in public, and that he remains available to meet with legislative leaders.
“Gov. Wolf made it clear that he would not engage in negotiating through personal attacks and public browbeating,” spokesman J.J. Abbott said in a statement.
In 2015, Mr. Wolf’s first year in office, the governor openlyclashed with Republicans who control both legislative chambers, starting with a fiercely Democratic agenda of increased education spending and a new energy tax. The result was a historic and bruising impasse that held up funding for public schools and nonprofits that provide social services to the poor.
It cost him. When the governor emerged from what ended up being a very public fight in the spring of 2016, his job approval stood at 31 percent in Franklin & Marshall College polling. His standing had stabilized at about 40 percent in the college’s May survey. A Morning Consult poll last month pegged Mr. Wolf’s approval rating at 48 percent. fundraising appeals, for instance, based on his opposition to the GOP-led effort to repeal Obamacare. This year, the governor “I’m calling on Congress has delegated negotiating to join the Democratic and work to his top staff, led by Republican governors who his relatively new chief of are working to strengthen staff, Mike Brunelle, according the Affordable Care Act to to several people involved stabilize markets, lower in talks who spoke on costs and make critical coverage condition of anonymity because available to more they were not authorized Americans,” read a campaign to discuss the closeddoor email circulated July process. Mr. Wolf, himself, 30, asking supporters to chip largely has stayed out of in $5 or more “to make sure I the fray, instead choosing to have the resources to fight call certain legislative leaders back and protect care for for private discussions. Pennsylvanians.”
“I think he’s played it low The governor’s campaign key intentionally,” said pollster in recent weeks also has and political science highlighted Mr. Wolf’s refusal professor G. Terry to turn over state voter Madonna, noting that few information to a commission voters pay attention to every created by Mr. Trump twist and turn of the budget to investigate his unsupported process. claim that millions of
“The average Jane and illegal votes were cast Joe is not invested in this at against him in last year’s all,” he said. “So why should election. he risk getting involved in Steve Crawford, who was needlesscontroversies when chief of staff to former Democratic he’s not getting any public Gov. Ed Rendell, said pressure? In some ways, it’s in an interview last week fairly shrewd what he’s doing.” that the budget fight in Harrisburg is really a fight between
Indeed, as budget negotiations the Republican-controlled drag on, Mr. Wolf has House and Senate. spent much time lashing out For Mr. Wolf to wade into at President Donald Trump that would be senseless, he and congressional Republicans. said. He has sent several “You’ve got two grizzly bears fighting each other and the last thing you want to do is get in there and break that up,” said Mr. Crawford, now the managing vice president of the S.R. Wojdak lobbying firm.
They have sparred over everything from tax hikes to expanding gambling in the state to further privatizing liquor sales, emerging from talks looking tired and frustrated.
The Senate, where Republicans have historically been more moderate than their counterparts in the House, has even seemed to form an unspoken alliance with the Wolf administration to push through a revenue deal. Late last month, senators passed a package of bills that contained some items the Democratic governor does not want, but many that he does — including a new tax on natural gas drillers.
Enacting a new natural gas severance tax was one of Mr. Wolf’s top campaign promises when he ran for governor in 2014.
Mr. Abbott, Mr. Wolf’s spokesman, pointed to that development as an example of how the governor’s lowerkey approach has yielded results.
Still, the House has not committed to even begin debating it.
In fact, looking around the Capitol these days, it would be easy to think there is no problem. The hallways are empty, even of lobbyists who congregate in the ornate rotunda when talks are ongoing. Leaders and staffers who have been key to negotiations are on vacation, some for weeks.
Faced with that reality, neither Mr. Wolf nor members of his administration will answer questions about contingency plans for a prolonged stalemate. Some Republicans argue that he has little choice but to freeze spending until there is a revenue package in place that will fill a deficit of more than $2 billion — a move that heading into an election year, could chip away at his popularity.
Mr. Wolf and his administration have taken the position that the impasse does not affect their authority to spend. But state Treasurer Joe Torsella has warned that the state could run out of money to pay its bills as early as the end of this month. And credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s has said the state could face another downgrade if it does not fix its deficit-riddled finances.