Celebrate the Good Half

Lowman Henry's Commentary gets me thinking how much we really need to enact a Taxpayer Protection Act.

As much as we have criticized the budget deal, it took a government shutdown just to limit spending to a 5.3% increase (more on that here).

The budget passed by the Senate in June deserved high praise, both for limiting spending, for cutting out WAMs and other waste, and for being a realistic spending plan. We should also give kudos to lawmakers who didn't give in to Governor Rendell's ponzi scheme of an electricty tax for more corporate welfare, and (for probably the first time in history), letting advocates of limited spending (rather than just tax-eaters) testify on the budget, including yours truly.

But despite the efforts of Senate Republican leaders, the overall growth of spending is still too high, and it appears there will be a vote on a poorly vetted trasnportation plan.

Thus, we need to enact a constitutional spending limit, in order to control the excessive growth of state goverment spending - and so that next time Governor Rendell holds state government hostage and House Democrats storm out of a budget negotiation because the meeting was only about the budget, taxpayer can have some protection against their ransom demands.