Ken Regal makes his statement about the PA budget impasse at Hosanna House with Rep. Paul Costa, Rep. Ed Gainey, Sec. Ted Dallas, and other community leaders behind him.
It is well past the June 30 deadline for a 2015-16 Pennsylvania budget and negotiations between Governor Wolf and state Republican legislators are said to be at a stalemate.
Service providers across the state are already starting to feel the impacts of the frozen budget. Experts suggest compromise could be made on property tax relief while making sure public education and human services get fully funded.
On August 13, State Representatives Ed Gainey and Paul Costa along with Pittsburgh-area service providers joined PA Department of Human Services (DHS) Secretary Ted Dallas at Wilkinsburg’s Hosanna House to jointly call for the General Assembly to provide adequate funding for human service programs.
Below is the statement I made at this event, followed by what YOU can do – because your voice has power.
At Just Harvest, we know from years of work on the public policies that affect our hungry and low-income neighbors that government budgets reflect government priorities. We can read a budget and learn from it what things we care about as a community.
- Do we care if people with disabilities can be helped to live independently?
- Do we care if women fleeing from domestic violence can find safety and build a new life?
- Do we care if children who happen to be born in a low-income school district have a chance at a decent education?
- Do we care whether an elderly widow or a recently released ex-offender or single mom or anyone down on their luck knows where their next meal is coming from?
Or do we only care about protecting the profits of natural gas companies and whether it is sufficiently convenient to buy a bottle of bourbon?
These are the choices in front of us today – and well into the future. And they are really quite stark.
The budget proposed by Governor Wolf isn’t perfect. There should be opportunity for discussion and room for compromise. This is why the governor proposed a budget in February. But instead of working from then until June 30 to craft and negotiate that compromise, the leadership of the State Legislature has chosen to insist on enshrining the failed budget of the previous administration.
That was a budget whose cash-flow gimmickry, corporate welfare, and bad priorities didn’t work before, and it was a previous administration that the voters soundly rejected. Human services and education have borne the brunt of budget cuts for years. It is time to change direction and prioritize human services.
The past four years of state funding cuts hurt many of Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens and made it more difficult for organizations like Just Harvest to serve state taxpayers by providing high-quality and cost-effective help to people in need. It is time to change direction and prioritize human services.
The budget supported by the Republican majority of the House and Senate fails to meet the basic needs of our neighbors. But it is even worse than that. As we stand here today, the stalemate they have chosen – instead of their constitutional duty – uses those very neighbors as the pawns in a power struggle.
They hope that the nonprofit organizations contracted by state and county agencies will find ourselves increasingly desperate to keep the bills paid and the doors open. They hope we will say to both sides, “pass a budget, any budget.”
Well, any budget is not good enough. We will not be pawns. We will stand strong as advocates for the people we serve – hungry people, frightened people, people in harm’s way, people struggling mightily every day to make a decent life. We will stand strong and say – yes, pass a budget. But not any budget.
Pass a budget that respects and supports Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens. It is time – long past time – to prioritize human services.”
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