Corbett, GOP did great thing with Pennsylvania's budget

Editor, the Record:

Take the following scenario: You're short on cash with a mortgage payment due next week. Your tax refund arrives. Would you buy a big screen TV? I wouldn't, and that seems like common sense. But that's exactly what Democrats wanted to do with our tax dollars.

Over the past few weeks we've been bombarded with information about Pennsylvania's budget, and how Pennsylvania collected $500 million more tax dollars than expected. Republicans want to save it, Democrats want to spend it. Democrats even called it a "surplus."

How can we have a surplus if we are $4 billion in debt? It's clear we need a change in direction in our government. The past eight years of massive spending and living under the threat of higher taxes didn't work.

Thankfully, fresh and courageous leadership is what Gov. Corbett and Republicans in the State Senate and State House delivered. They've passed a fiscally responsible budget that put the reins on spending, uses our tax dollars wisely, letting Pennsylvanians keep more of what they earn.

For the first time in eight years, we have a budget on time. Taxes haven't gone up a cent. Spending has been reduced by 4 percent, amounting to nearly $1 billion dollars. "Walking around money," or WAMS are gone. Over 1,000 state positions, most of which were vacant, have been eliminated. That's more money that taxpayers keep.

But necessary services and core functions of government are still funded. Emergency and public protection services remain intact, as are services for our veterans.

We have funding for state police. More Pennsylvania dollars are spent on education funding, an increase over the last two years of the Rendell era.

The runaway spending era is over. I thank Governor Corbett for not letting this happen under your watch.

TOM GEFFERS

Chairman, Monroe County Republican Committee