Wolf Budget Address Met With Resistance
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Philadelphia - Matt Brouillette, the CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, reacted to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf's budget address with skepticism that the impasse that has existed since June can be overcome with the latest proposal.
Brouillette, talking with Dom Giordano from Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said Wolf's plan is not in the best interest of Pennsylvania's residents.
"If the Governor gets his way, which, thankfully, he didn't in 2015, but if he were to get his way with this new proposal, we'd be looking at massive tax increases once again. He proposed an 11 percent increase in the personal tax and wants to extract an additional $3.6 Billion out of families paychecks. Hopefully, the result we had in 2015, of no tax increases, our legislature will deliver the same thing to him in 2016."
He accused the Governor of breaking a promise he made to voters in 2014.
"Governor Wolf campaigned on cutting taxes on middle-class families. But everything that he has proposed is really going to clobber all of these families and so no legislator that I am talking to is saying people are clamoring for these tax increases. It really was an out of touch budget proposal that I don't think is grounded in any reality that our elected officials are living in."
Brouillette also criticized Wolf for the language directed at Republicans while calling on them to compromise.
"He seems to be doubling down on a lot of the rhetoric that isn't what I would say is the way you negotiate a deal. He talked about Republicans using dime store magic tricks and things like that related to their budgeting process, calling them gimmicks and that's not really how I think you come to any conclusion in any of this. Even if they wanted to help him, the name calling and the hostility with which he has presented his budget proposal, I don't think is going to bring the sides closer together."
