Pennsylvanians are staring down the barrel of two budget crises that are threatening critical services and could lead to dramatically higher costs for working families.
In Washington, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are refusing to negotiate a bipartisan agreement with Democrats to avoid massive health care costs spikes that would force Pennsylvanians to pay thousands of dollars more a year to receive needed care.
Yet, while the shutdown in Washington is getting a lot of attention, a similar budget impasse in Pennsylvania is threatening funding for everything from government services, schools, and state parks as state Senate Republicans refuse to negotiate in good faith with Governor Shapiro and legislative Democrats.
Senate Republicans, including Frank Farry (R-Bucks), continue to insist on flat funding our state government, but rampant inflation means this would represent a cut to vital services that Bucks County residents rely on. And as more and more key government services are cut by the Trump Administration, we need our state government to step up and fund key programs.
Instead of trying to force cuts, Republicans like Farry need to support bipartisan, targeted investments designed to lower costs for working families while creating union jobs.
In fact, last year’s budget included examples of common sense investments that do just that. From the tens of millions of dollars of investments for Solar for Schools, a bipartisan program that is lowering costs for school districts across the commonwealth by helping them make the switch to clean energy, to the funding to plug abandoned wells, which improve air and water quality while creating union jobs, to money to allow farmers to adopt innovations that lower costs while protecting our streams.
Funding for all these popular programs, however, is now stalled as Republicans continue to hold our state budget hostage.
Our commonwealth and our nation are at a crisis point, as Trump’s failed economic and environmental agenda threatens the health and welfare of our families even as his failed energy, health care and trade policies jack up costs for the middle class.
We need transformative change from Harrisburg to meet the moment.
That means continued investments in our state forests and parks, recognizing that they protect sensitive ecological areas while also providing an important recreation opportunity that powers our economy. And at a time when Trump is shredding federal environmental regulations, we need to make investments in proven programs that protect our air and water.
We also need to double down on programs that lower costs for working families, like the Home Preservation Program, which will provide assistance to help families remain in aging homes while lowering their utility bills through weatherization.
And we need to make urgently needed investments in our state’s public transit systems, including SEPTA, to ensure that they have the resources they need to get Pennsylvanians to work, to medical appointments and home to their families.
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While Senate Republicans like Farry are crying poverty, our state treasury has a record surplus of nearly $11 billion.
And Senate Republicans are still fighting the implementation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the courts. This multi-state agreement could provide Pennsylvanians with $1 billion in annual investments that would create union jobs in growing clean energy and energy efficiency fields while lowering electricity bills for working families and local businesses.
At the same time, these very same Republicans have joined forces with Donald Trump to block Pennsylvania from utilizing its fair share of money from the federal Solar for All program, which was poised to provide cheaper solar energy for 12,500 homes across our commonwealth.
It’s time to unlock that money so that it can be put to work helping Pennsylvanians get ahead.
If Farry and his Republican colleagues won’t come to the table to negotiate a budget in good faith, then we need to replace them at the ballot box next year.
The time for delay and gridlock is over.
