As he promised, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed a stopgap budget the Republican-controlled Legislature completed Monday and sent to his desk Tuesday.
Gov. Tom Wolf (Chris Shipley / The Morning Call)
Wolf's reasons for killing the short-term budget, which would have provided $11.2 billion in state tax dollars and freed up billions more in federal tax money, were the same as when he rejected a full 2015-16 budget the Legislature sent him on June 30. Like the full budget, Wolf said, the stopgap did not include a severance tax on natural gas drillers to provide a continuous stream of extra money for schools, it did not close the state's deficit with other new tax revenue, and it did not reduce local property taxes by increasing the state's income and sales taxes.
"Just like their sham budget in June, this stopgap budget makes it clear that Republican leaders not only want to do nothing to move the commonwealth forward, but they are intent on taking us backward," Wolf said in a statement.
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