PA Legislative Leaders Working On No Tax Hike Budget
By Tony Romeo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Despite a significant deficit, majority Republican leaders in the state legislature now say new taxes are no longer part of the discussion as they work on a state budget due on Monday.
The state House sent the Senate a budget that relies on almost $400 million from privatizing liquor sales - a plan that appears to have no traction in the Senate.
Friday afternoon, Chester Republican Dominic Pileggi, the Senate majority leader, met with other GOP legislative leaders.
"We talked about different approaches to identify revenues other than proceeds from selling the state store system and we think we have a couple of ideas that might work… and we're going to flesh them out a little bit more before we make them public," he said.
But those ideas to plug the revenue gap do not involve taxes.
Senate GOP leaders had previously signaled that taxes – in particular, a tax on natural gas extraction and a statewide increase in cigarette taxes – were under consideration to raise new revenue.