Harrisburg - Today Republican Gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Tom Corbett issued the following statement in response to Governor Ed Rendell's proposed 2010-11 budget:
"With record high unemployment and job creators fleeing the state, millions of Pennsylvania taxpayers are struggling every day to pay their bills and to make ends meet. They are looking for solutions to get Pennsylvania back on the right track, and they are looking for a leader who will make job growth and economic stability our number one priority.
In order to truly revitalize Pennsylvania's business climate, we must start by restoring fiscal discipline to state government and getting the commonwealth's financial house in order. We need to bring a culture of change to Harrisburg by cutting spending, which has grown by 40 percent during the past seven years, root out waste and corruption and return money to Pennsylvania taxpayers.
Pennsylvania is facing a multi-billion dollar economic crisis the likes of which our state has never seen. The looming public employee pension deficit and other unfunded liabilities such as the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund and Mcare will reach well over $5 billion for fiscal year 2012-13. The state can no longer continue to delay finding solutions to protecting Pennsylvania's financial future and economic stability for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
But, taxing Pennsylvania's hardworking families and small businesses, as the Governor pledged this morning, is not the answer. Forcing small businesses, which employ millions of Pennsylvanians, to pay additional taxes for an unfunded state pension system when many of them are struggling to support their own employees and their retirements, could be financially detrimental to their bottom lines. We need to find solutions that are in the best interest of all Pennsylvanians.
That is why today, I am calling upon the Governor and the General Assembly to hold a "Special Session on Pennsylvania's Economic Recovery" to immediately address our state's unfunded liabilities, and most importantly, the pension crisis. We must put into place a bipartisan, well constructed plan that not only ensures the financial future of Pennsylvania, but also our financial success. Solutions to this issue cannot be one-sided, and we can no longer afford to have politics interfere with our economic recovery. We must protect Pennsylvania taxpayers.
While our public employees have continued to make personal contributions to their pension funds even during the long months of the recession, Harrisburg put off the tough decisions and delayed the inevitable until now when the day of reckoning is upon us. As the governor indicated this morning, the state's annual public pension contribution will grow from nearly $600 million this year to almost $4 billion by 2012-13. These are challenges facing all Pennsylvanians, and this specific challenge will require citizens - regardless of geography, race, ethnicity, ideology or political registration - to work together to solve. This is why I believe that a special session is critical to focus our governmental leaders in securing Pennsylvania's economic future.
Should the Governor choose not call for a special session, as the next Governor I will on my first day in office invoke the power granted by Pennsylvania's Constitution to convene the legislature for a special session on economic recovery to address our state's long-term fiscal stability and health and give Pennsylvania taxpayers a voice in Harrisburg.
I look forward to a bipartisan and cooperative effort finding creative, fair, reasonable and timely responses to these challenges. I know that working together - we can craft public policy that ensures prosperity for all Pennsylvanians."
