ABC27 WHTM State budget bill now goes to Governor for signature

State budget bill now goes to Governor for signature

Wednesday night the State House approved the $27.2 billion dollar budget that had already passed the State Senate. The measure now goes to Governor Tom Corbett for his signature, which is expected to come sometime Thursday.

This is the first time the budget has passed on time in nine years.

The vote in the State House went 109-92, largely along party lines. Republicans called the plan a product of hard choices in bad economic times, while Democrats warned it will devastate education and human services.

"I think it moves Pennsylvania in the wrong direction," said York County Democratic Representative Eugene DePasquale. "Governor Corbett is cutting money for Kindergarten and early education."

Funding has been cut to public schools and to state universities like Millersville and Shippensburg by 18 percent,  and to state related schools like Penn State and Pitt by 19 percent.

"The majority leader in the House says this is a budget that has priorities, and it does have priorities," said Lancaster County Democrat Mike Sturla. "Its about giving money to corporations and taking from working Pennsylvanians."

But Republicans were trying to hold the line on property taxes, while trying to make up for federal stimulus money that's dried up.

"It's a tough budget because these are tough times," said Cumberland County Republican Glen Grell. "We were able to actually reduce spending in real numbers from last year, which is the first time in 20 years or more that that's happened."

"Working families in this state who have seen their income go down and property taxes and everything else go up are saying 'live within your means...please we cannot afford any more taxes," said Republican Stan Saylor.

"We should have done this the past four years," said Grell. "We've consistently voted against budgets that have tried to spend more than the rate of inflation."