from the BCCT:
Rendell pushes education aspect of state budget
By: MARGARET GIBBONS
Bucks County Courier Times
The governor and state Rep. Rick Taylor, D-151, were at the Norristown Area School District's Eisenhower Middle School.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on Wednesday claimed that the state's two-month-long budget impasse has nothing to do with partisan ideology.
State Rep. Rick Taylor, D-151, is not so sure.
"I think there are just two fundamental different viewpoints in government," said Taylor.
"One says that the revenues are not there, so be it, we can't support the programs at past levels," Taylor said. "The Democrats come from a what is the need standpoint in recessionary periods. That is precisely when we need to stand up more for our most vulnerable."
Asked if he supported tax hikes to fund programs for vulnerable populations, Taylor responded that he has supported "some targeted revenue enhancements."
For example, he said, he had supported a natural gas drilling tax proposed by Rendell to help fund the budget. However, the governor has since pulled that proposal from the table.
Taylor also said he supports increased taxes on tobacco products while also lifting some exemptions to the state sales tax.
"But I do not support broad-based tax increases," said Taylor.
Taylor was one of a handful of Democratic state lawmakers from the area accompanying Rendell on his visit to the Norristown Area School District's Eisenhower Middle School "to put a face on the budget impasse."
With district Superintendent Janet Samuels describing Rendell as the "ultimate champion of education" and some 30 students serving as a backdrop, the governor told a crowd of some 75 educators and parents that the budget impasse is not about ideology but about the Democrats fighting to ensure "the future of our children."
"I believe as strongly as I can, as deeply as I can, as passionately as I can that we owe a moral obligation to our children to make sure we educate them so they can fulfill their potential," said Rendell.
Rendell said that neither he nor his fellow Democrats will back away from their ongoing commitment to increase funding for education.
"That is what this fight is all about," said Rendell. "If I were to accept the education budget Republicans want me to accept, we'd have a budget tomorrow."
While government has many missions to spend tax money wisely to improve the quality of life for everyone, its most important mission "is to educate our children well," according to the governor.
Thumping the podium, Rendell said, "If we are here until St. Patrick's Day without a budget, if it preserves education, if it preserves our future, it is a fight worth fighting."
The newspaper was unsuccessful in trying to reach state Rep. Thomas Murt, a Republican whose district abuts that of Taylor's, for comment on the Norristown visit by Rendell and Taylor.
However, this is not the first time that Rendell and the Democrats have portrayed the Republicans as anti-education during this budget battle.
Republican state Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola, who is chairman of the Senate's Education Committee, last month said it was "disappointing" that the governor and his Democratic allies "continue to falsely paint" the proposed Republican Senate budget "as draconian to educational progress."
The proposed GOP budget uses a combination of federal and state money to increase the education budget by 11 percent over the next two years, said Piccola.
Rendell said that the federal dollars that the GOP proposes to use is federal stimulus money that will disappear after two years. Republican leaders say the economy will have recovered sufficiently by that time, with state revenue generated by an improved economy offsetting the loss of the stimulus money.
