GOP budget plan doesn’t get job done

To the Times: The Republican budget is another display of fiscal irresponsibility. It increases the deficit and it cuts education by $95 million.

That’s right – the Republican budget once again underfunds education and uses gimmicks that will actually lead to a $95 million cut in funding for our schools.

As we have seen for years, Republicans continue to refuse to adequately fund Pre-K through 12 education in Pennsylvania. This year, their budget fails to fund over $305 million in school construction reimbursements. Instead, they propose to pay for school construction by issuing billions in debt. However, because the Republican budget fails to take any meaningful steps to fix Pennsylvania’s structural budget deficit - which has already led to five credit downgrades - the commonwealth will be unable to responsibly issue debt to fund school construction.

The Republicans’ failure to provide school construction funding to local school districts, combined with the commonwealth’s inability to responsibly issue debt, will lead to a direct cost to the school districts. This will wipe out any marginal funding increases for local school districts. This means that the Republican budget is an effective $95 million cut to school districts after years of cuts under previous Republican budgets.

The Republican bud- get continues the trends of underfunding our schools and of crafting fiscally irresponsible budgets. These budgets have led to massive structural deficits and multiple credit downgrades. Now those decisions will have a direct impact on our ability to pay our bills and issue debt.

For the first time in years, we have an opportunity to fund our schools and fix the structural deficit, but Republican leaders refused to even bring the compromise budget to a vote. The Republican budget will lead to more struggles for local schools and more credit downgrades. It’s time to change the status quo.