The George Report

Lease or Fleece?

October 2009 commentary by state Rep. Camille "Bud" George, D-74 of Clearfield County

I’m hoping the growing and understandable drumbeat to "Get ‘Er Done" on a state budget doesn’t end up doing in Pennsylvania.

From Day One, I’ve pushed for compromise to reach an accord. Now, I fear that the deal truly is a ‘compromise’ budget because it has the potential of compromising much of Pennsylvania’s future.

However, scores of programs are shutting down – many providing life-sustaining services – and daycares and early education programs are unable to open. As a constituent wrote me, "So many Pennsylvanians are depending on the budget to be settled soon."

 After three months of no budget, the proposed budget deal appears to be a Hobson’s Choice – take it or nothing at all. Certainly, no guarantees exist that a better deal is obtainable. It is not the Age of Reason and Responsibility in Harrisburg.

There’s more devil than details in the "deal." And, the deal’s scant details should scare the devil out of everyone.

Every hunter, angler and outdoor enthusiast should question the budget proposal to lease tens of thousands of acres of state forestland to gas drillers. It could change the nature of the Commonwealth forever, and, in essence, convert Penn’s Woods to a corporate cash cow and environmental stewardship to a quest for profits and state revenues.

My measure, House Bill 1489, calling for a severance tax on gas drillers was jettisoned late in the negotiations. The proposed alternatives present many ominous scenarios for taxpayers and Pennsylvania’s natural resources.

What does it say when proposals gain steam to tax small games of chance offered by neighborhood VFWs, your local order of Eagles and  American Legion – fund-raisers that support everything from scholarships to help for or veterans – but not gas companies?

Tax admissions to your local theater group but not gas companies?

Hold your nose, it gets worse.

The deal reportedly would cut the state Department of Environmental Protection budget by $56 million and eliminate the Oil and Gas Lease Fund, shunting $143 million this year and $125 million next year away from protection and management of state forests and parks to the General Fund.

Meanwhile, reports of dangerous chemical spills at Marcellus Shale drilling sites are coming in at an alarming rate. A 38-mile portion of Dunkard Creek along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border has been rendered virtually lifeless. Now is not the time to retreat on environmental safeguards.

I worry that the proposed deal would offer but a one-year reprieve for education, safety-net programs and job-creation efforts while unfairly favoring special interests and unfairly singling out certain classes of taxpayers, including smokers.

The budget-funding mechanisms are suspect – morally and fiscally – and so, too, are their weak premises that they will enable Pennsylvania to build responsible budgets in 2010 and 2011.

Next year’s fiscal outlook is even bleaker.

In the 1970s TV series "All In The Family," a family member confronted Archie Bunker with the number of firearm deaths in America.

"Would it make you feel any better if they was pushed out of windows?" Archie retorted.

The drumbeat to approve a budget at any cost is growing. However, it feels like we’re being pushed out the window with a gun at our backs.

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