Sep. 24, 2015
HARRISBURG – State Rep. Jeff Pyle (R-Armstrong/Indiana/Butler) voted in favor of emergency funding legislation for schools and vital human services across the state. The legislation, Senate Bills 1000 and 1001, would provide four months of funding for government operations applied retroactively to the beginning of the fiscal year July 1 through Oct. 31.
Gov. Tom Wolf has again said he will veto these measures, which would release $11 billion in state funds and more than $24 billion in federal funds to schools and human service agencies.
“After eight months in office, the only thing Gov. Wolf has accomplished is losing two ill-advised court cases and shutting down funding for our children’s education the services for the most vulnerable in our society,” Pyle said. “One of the biggest problems Wolf has is his tremendous lack of transparency. Elected people can yack all they want about transparency but the proof is in the pudding and right now he’s not offering up even a snackpack.”
House and Senate negotiators compromised and offered the governor an additional $400 million in basic education funding over last year’s figure – the governor’s No. 1 priority – and the governor rejected the offer.
“After four weeks of silence and failure to attend negotiation meetings, Wolf threw together a hastily called press conference on Sept. 17 and claimed he had offered comprehensive pension and liquor reform proposals that were rejected by Republicans,” Pyle said. “It turns out this claim was blatantly untrue and newspaper editorial boards across the state called out his proposals as ‘phony’ and called on him to sign today’s emergency funding measure.”
“A few months ago, Wolf theorized that Commonwealth had a ‘democratic deficiency,’ i.e., that the representatives elected by the people are not doing what the people who elected them want them to do. But in townhalls I have held in three counties recently demonstrated the opposite - his theory is without substantiation and thus, logically invalid.”
“The wishes of the people of the 60th District have been made quite clear – No New Taxes. I don’t think the Gov is reading the 193-0 defeat of his tax plan on June 1 correctly. I assert the Commonwealth now has a ‘gubernatorial deficiency.’ – our governor is not doing what the Commonwealth’s taxpayers want him to do. If he thinks he has a ‘mandate’ to hike taxes on the elderly and the middle class, he is misreading the tea leaves of last November’s election. He needs to sign the budget that was passed.”
Representative Jeff Pyle
60th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Charles Lardner
717.260.6443
clardner@pahousegop.com
JeffPyle.net /
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