Burns: Spending cuts, efficiencies better for state budget than sales, income tax hikes; cracking down on welfare fraud could yield new savings
Rep. Frank Burns February 10, 2017 | 3:16 PM
EBENSBURG, Feb. 10 – A 2017-18 state budget proposal that achieves $2 billion in cuts and savings is conceptually preferable to one that relies on sales and income tax hikes, said state Rep. Frank Burns, D-Cambria, who has consistently opposed new taxes.
Burns said he believes that Gov. Tom Wolf, who introduced his latest budget this week, has grasped a well-documented reality in the 72nd Legislative District that also applies to wide swaths of Pennsylvania.
“The working people of my district have made it known time and again – to me and anyone else who will listen – that they don’t want higher taxes, period,” Burns said. “The reality is, they are working and they are tired of carrying people who aren’t working. That’s why I refused to support the governor’s prior attempts to raise the sales and income taxes.”
Two years ago, Burns was one of 13 House Democrats who broke party ranks to end a nine-month state budget impasse between Democrat Wolf and Republicans who control the state House and state Senate. That dispute centered on Wolf’s desire to raise the sales or income tax, or a combination thereof, to close a $1.2 billion shortfall.
“The irony is, if the governor had promoted this $2 billion in cost savings and spending cuts two years ago, instead of holding out for higher taxes, we could have avoided a big fiasco – and the state would have had an $800 million surplus each of the last two years,” Burns said.
While regarding the current budget proposal as a step in the right philosophical direction, Burns said he intends to get the opinion of folks back home before deciding how he will vote on it in Harrisburg. In particular, Burns said he wants to gauge their support for Wolf’s plan to assess a $25-per-person fee for state police coverage.
Burns also believes further savings can be found through fair-minded and practical reforms in the public welfare system, such as requiring photographs on ACCESS cards and cracking down on fraud like that documented by state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who discovered 2,000 dead people’s accounts getting state benefits.
“News stories revealing the woman who got nearly $60,000 in public benefits for twins no one has seen in 10 years, or the woman who got $100,000 for kids who don’t exist, or the sale and fraudulent use of SNAP benefits, are not only an embarrassment to the state, they are an affront to the working people who foot the bill,” Burns said. “I share my constituents’ values on this matter, which is why I will continue supporting measures to make the welfare system as fraud-free as possible.”