New PA Budget INCREASES School Spending

They are nuts in Harrisburg! Everyone is complaining about school taxes and out of control spending by public schools. Yesterday we learned we might get about a $200 break in 2008......

Today I learn negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on a $26 billion budget . Fine, we need a budget. What we don't need is what's in that budget. A 6 percent increase in spending for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in public schools.

Overall, the budget deal calls for a 6.8 percent spending increase over this year's budget. Are you making 6.8 percent more this year?

Counting Rendell's supplemental requests for about $360 million to cover unforeseen expenses in the current fiscal year, this year's state budget will come to more than $24.6 million, or a 7 percent increase over 2005-06.

The budget for the coming year would push about $290 million in reimbursements to health care providers for treating the poor and elderly into the 2007-08 budget -- a short-term cost-saving tactic that has concerned some lawmakers.

Rendell's proposal to expand state-sponsored health care for children, would cover an extra 15,000 children at a cost to the state of $4.5 million.

Here are some thoughts for those in Harrisburg:

CUT TAXES NOW. I COULD BE DEAD OR LIVING IN ANOTHER STATE BY 2008
STOP OVER SPENDING. CHECK THE BALANCE BEFORE YOU WRITE THE CHECK
DON"T SPEND WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE. I CAN'T WITHOUT GOING TO JAIL. SAME RULES SHOULD APPLY TO YOU.
YOU CAN'T INVENT MONEY. DON'T SPEND GAMBLING MONEY BEFORE THE SLOTS ARE EVEN PLUGGED IN!
UNDERSTAND PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK HARD TO EARN EVERY PENNY YOU SPEND!