State Rep. Gary Day, R-187th, along with State Reps. Justin Simmons, R-131st, Doyle Heffley, R-122nd and House Majority Whip Bryan Cutler, R-100th, recently had a press conference to discuss the budget and Gov. Tom Wolf in front of Cedarbrook Nursing Home, South Whitehall Township.

“It’s an important day for us to try to get information and the truth about what is going with the Pennsylvania budget, in the state budget negotiations and how it affects different people throughout our districts,” Day said.

Day said Wolf’s tax increases are the largest increases in state history.

Not one member in the House of Representatives voted for the governor’s budget plan, he said.

“The Legislature then created a budget that has no tax increases, spends $100 million more on education and funds needed programs ... I believe the governor agrees with a lot of the programs that it did fund,” Day said. “Our no-tax-increase budget spent more on education and, within a few hours of the governor receiving it, he used a full budget veto that would deny programs and services for Pennsylvanians like those in this Lehigh County nursing facility.

“Our seniors in Lehigh County are being held hostage by Gov. Wolf’s tax increases,” Day said. “Two-thirds of the budget is being held up by the governor’s full budget veto.”

Simmons also commented on his disappointment regarding Gov. Wolf’s full budget veto and his administration.

“I am very disappointed in the behavior of the current administration,” Simmons said. “When this governor came into office, he said he was going to be a different kind of governor. He was going to change the culture in Harrisburg, and instead what has happened is he has brought Washington-style politics to Harrisburg.

“He talks about all the good things with his increase of $12 million in spending over two years, but he never talks about how we are going to pay for it. Instead he uses the gas drillers and a severance tax on the gas drillers as the bogeyman,” Simmons said.

Simmons said Wolf’s plan is for a severance tax.

Three cents of every dollar would go toward spending; the other 97 cents would come from Pennsylvanians.

His spending plan also talks about a state income tax hike to 3.7 percent and a sales tax increase of over 6.6 percent, which would expand to 300 different items currently not taxed, Simmons said.

This is the largest spending increase in Pennsylvania history, Simmons said.

Simmons said the House passed two really good pieces of legislation and put them on the governor’s desk.

“For the first time in the history of Pennsylvania, we had a liquor privatization bill on the governor’s desk,” he said. “The governor said he is a Progressive. How in God’s name, if you are a Progressive, do you defend the current system of liquor we have in Pennsylvania? It is a Prohibition-era system.

“It is time we get rid of this relic. It is an insult to every Pennsylvanian that our governor vetoed that bill. Forty-eight other states allow it.”

He also addressed the issue of the pension problem in the state.

“We all agree there is a pension problem in Pennsylvania. We have a $50 billion unfunded liability,” Simmons said. “I think we need to put new employees in the 401(k) hybrid system we have proposed.

“I am severely disappointed the governor vetoed [the budget]. I hope he will come back to the table with us, because all of this spending, if we don’t get our pension problem under control, is going to be a recurring theme year after year.”

Heffley also commented on the governor’s veto.

“The governor came in and said he was going to be a different kind of governor,” Heffley said. “Yeah, if you look at vetoing the entire budget, the first time in 40 years, he is a different type of governor.

“He is a governor who wants to play politics with our most vulnerable citizens.”

Heffley said there is no need for the governor to veto the entire budget and play politics with the social service providers, state employees and home visiting nurses that vulnerable Pennsylvanian citizens need or to make them pawns in this political process.

“With 274 line items in this budget, for those social services we agreed upon, there was no need to veto them,” Heffley said. “He is playing politics with very important people, the people Pennsylvanians don’t mind paying to provide them with these services. That to me is why I am disappointed in the governor.”

He said the time to negotiate on a June 30 budget deadline is not in August.

“The time for him to negotiate was April and May, so you can meet your constitutional deadline,” Heffley said.

He said for four years in a row, he and his colleagues in the House have delivered an on-time state budget to the governor by June 30.

“We did that again this year only to have that budget vetoed, not just a line-item part of the budget, but the entire budget,” Heffley said. “To veto those basic social services ... that was wrong, unjustified.

“I would call on the governor to move quickly to those line items agreed upon. Let’s not argue over the things we agreed upon; let’s settle our dispute over the things we disagree on.”

House Majority Whip Cutler commented on how the talks with Wolf and the budget are going.

Cutler said the good news is discussions with the governor are still ongoing but are not progressing at the rate representatives in the House would like.

“Despite [the governor’s] budget failing unanimously, we still had an obligation to provide a budget to him by the end of [June], which we did,” Cutler said. “We worked within the confines of the current revenue we had, and it was balanced with no new taxes.

“I understand the governor did not completely agree with the budget. I would simply offer there was a better way forward than a complete veto of the budget.”

The three big cost drivers in the budget are in the areas of education, health/human services and corrections, he said.

Cutler said the House had one budget, the governor’s, which had no votes, and it had the House’s, which had a majority of both chamber.

“As we move forward, I certainly believe and request the negotiated compromise be closer to ours (the House), which already has a majority of votes in both chambers as opposed to his (the governor’s), which clearly has no support,” Cutler said.