Gambling in PA ... with a $28 billion budget

No one can say we didn't warn lawmakers that their 4.06% increase in spending for the 2008-09 fiscal year was not fiscally prudent. The AP reports that Rendell, et al, decided to take the gamble that Pennsylvania's economy would not tank.

Of course, it would have been more fiscally responsible to plan for the worst and hope for the best, like any family has to budget for potential bad news. Instead, if tax revenues to the state plummet, next year's budget will have to include spending cuts (not likely) or tax hikes (more likely). It would have been a far better bet to limit spending increases today with our ideas than to gamble on the economic news of tomorrow.