Political stunts a disservice to Pa. taxpayers

Warning: Pennsylvania politics will stunt the growth of your maturity. It’s not a result of smoke-filled rooms because most politicians don’t smoke anymore. It just seems to be a side-effect of holding public office. Our leaders can’t seem to stop themsel

• State Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York County, recently chartered a chopper to take a TV newscaster around to view high school campuses from the air — apparently proof to the senator that our schools have plenty of money. Huh?

• State Rep. Seth Grove, R-York County, recently helped ram through a House vote on Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal.

It failed spectacularly. Not a single vote — not even from a Democrat.

It was premature. Everyone knew it. There was no way that plan was going to pass as originally presented by the governor. It was a stunt — and Gov. Wolf said as much.

Which prompted House majority leader press secretary Steve Miskin to fire back with this odd email to journalists:

“As Governor Wolf and the House Democrats are claiming the unanimous vote against the governor’s humongous tax plan was a ‘stunt,’ is bull. The governor’s office AND House Democrat leaders were told if they insist on pushing a vote to suspend the Rules for the late filed Governor’s budget proposal, that we would bring up the tax plan. They both knew prior to going into session yesterday. So, the stunt was the late filed amendment — we all know, this particular governor and his administration like stunts and props: • Driving in his Jeep • Not staying at the Mansion

• Using his business — which, now that he is governor has been sold

• Various choices he makes to check off boxes • Visitations “Now, with the unanimous defeat of his funding plan, it is time for the real budget debate to begin.”

We’re not even sure what he means with some of those bullet points (and, political stunt or not, we like the Jeep and the living at home).

But Mr. Miskin is right about one thing: It is time for the real budget debate to begin.

It was probably naive, but we’d been under the impression it had already begun with discussions between lawmakers and the governor on possible points of compromise.

During recent editorial board meetings, Reps. Grove and Stan Saylor (author of an alternative property tax reform proposal that’s similar to the governor’s) and Wolf’s Chief of Staff Katie McGinty said nice things about one another and indicated compromise was possible.

Or maybe that was just a stunt, too.

OK, we get it: This is hard. There are real and legitimate philosophical differences between the two sides. There are political futures at stake. There is an inherent motive to brand the other guy as the wasteful, big-spending liberal or as the mean, tight-fisted conservative.

But Pennsylvania really is at an important and fragile point.

We have serious fiscal issues — pensions, budget deficits. We have failing schools and deteriorating infrastructure.

We need some maturity from the people we sent to Harrisburg to deal with these issues.

Instead, we get Gov. Jeep bickering with Sen. Chopper and Rep. Stopper.

We have serious fiscal issues — pensions, budget deficits. We have failing schools and deteriorating infrastructure.