Governor Corbett Considering Special Legislative Session To Deal With Pension Crisis
By Dom Giordano
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Dom Giordano talked with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about what he calls a crisis with public employee's pensions.
The Governor criticized his opponent in November's gubernatorial election, Tom Wolf, for not having a plan to address the issue, and said fast action needs to be taken to avoid raising property taxes even higher on most Pennsylvanians.
"My opponent continues to say there is not a pension crisis. Members of his party continue to say there is not a pension crisis, but I think the property owners, the home owners of Pennsylvania, the business owners of Pennsylvania, when they're getting their tax bill for their school taxes understand that there's a pension crisis. Let me be clear, it's not the teachers that have created this issue. The politicians in the past have created much of it. Unfortunately, the stock market failure back in 2008 created some of it. But we have to recognize we have to move forward and attack this, work with this, otherwise, we're not going to have pensions down the road if we don't, or we're going to have the choice of taxing the people who are really not at fault for this and that's the homeowner."
Listen to full podcast:
Governor Tom Corbett
Corbett stated he is even considering calling a special legislative session next month to deal with this issue.
"We are going around and talking to people around the state and trying to make a determination and we are meeting with legislators to see if we waited until September and could get it done in September or do we need to bring it back right now. I have not made a decision yet from a technical standpoint, if you call a special session, you have to re-introduce a bill and you almost go back to square one, where we're very close with what we have right now."
He also addressed the federal government's responsibility in dealing with the thousands of child immigrants coming across the southern border from Mexico and Central America.
"We have people coming into the country; we don't know who they are. My heart goes out for these children who are fleeing countries like this. I think we all feel that way. But I think the federal government has a responsibility to make sure, before any are released in other states that the children are healthy."
