Wagner Describes Budget Reality

Wagner Describes Budget Reality — For those who missed state Sen. Scott Wagner’s interview with Robb Hanrahan on CBS21’s Face the State, Sunday, it can be found here or below.

Wagner is an excellent legislator and the interview is worth watching.

“If there is anything that I want to say today, that I want people to hear, we have a pension crisis. It’s a $60 billion crisis,” Wagner told Hanrahan. “We have no way of getting out of that crisis. We cannot change benefits for people in the system. Constitutionally, we cannot do it. Yeah, we can try. It will go to the state Supreme Court and get kicked back.”

Obviously, the Senator has looked into the matter. What likely motivated him do so was this revelation he reported back in May that there were those in the state getting $400,000-plus public pensions.

We would like to point out that whatever ink has been placed on paper by politicians working corruptly with lobbyists enough wind caused by cold, honest anger can blow those words away.

And yes, someone with a $477,591  pension– that’s you former Penn State president Rodney Erickson — asking a family with an income of $45,000 to bail him out, is something to be coldly and honestly angry about. It is the epitome of immoral indifference and injustice. It is something you would think would be more fitting of a French nobleman circa 1788 rather than an American.

By the way, Gary Schultz of Jerry Sandusky scandal fame has a publicly guaranteed pension of $330,699. Yes, working guy and gal, the powers-that-be want you to cover it.

We would like to also point out that the mild pension reforms being pushed by the decent Republicans in the legislature such as Wagner and which have been shot down time and again by the not-so-decent powers-that-be do not concern existing pensions and would be unarguably constitutional.

Also in the interview, Wagner said that Pennsylvania’s true spending is about $99 billion of which the widely discussed general fund budget consists of  about $31 billion or less than a third.

Wagner described the state’s twisted budget process in which department heads expect automatic increases of up to 5 percent and say their funds have been cut if the hike is less. The commonsense business practice that Wagner advocates is reviewing for places were cuts can be made and existing funds better allocated.

Wagner noted that the state government is filled with what he termed “Swiss bank accounts” some of which are called Ledger 5 funds and are accessed at the discretion of the governor.

“There’s not a lot of transparency,” Wagner said. “. . . I asked our appropriations staff have we ever asked what what’s in those accounts.”

The staff said that they had asked.

So how did the governor reply?

“We never got an answer,” he said.

Wagner said he filed a “right to know” request 30 days ago and he is still awaiting a response.

Wagner said that among the money Gov. Wolf cut when he finally signed a budget on Dec. 29 was about $6 million for critical access hospitals, which are small 25-bed or less hospitals that serve rural districts and are now endangered.

“The Governor has $6 million in his grocery account,” Wagner said.

For some reason, though, he is holding these rural hospitals hostage.

“If these hospitals close, where do the people go?” Wagner said.

Wagner Describes Budget Reality