Editorial: Pennsylvania politics’ annual game of chicken – TribLIVE

On Thursday, Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward called her colleagues back to Harrisburg. It was a month after lawmakers left town with the state budget in limbo.

It was passed but not signed. Sticking points remained amid a triangle of power between the narrowly Democratic House, the solidly Republican Senate and the Democratic governor brokering deals on both sides.

After weeks of the all-too-familiar impasse, it was almost anticlimactic when Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the budget just a couple of hours later. It didn’t happen on a stage with a speech and a mixture of partisan applause and partisan silence.

There were no cameras. There was, however, a predictable congratulatory statement.

“This is what it looks like when government works together to make Pennsylvanians’ lives better,” Shapiro said.

With all due respect, governor, that is not what it is at all.

The budget was 34 days past due. That probably does not seem unusual to the governor or the lawmakers because it is rapidly becoming the norm.

It should not be. It is an example of everything that is wrong with the way governmental bodies negotiate, turning every necessary task into a game of chicken. Except, a game of chicken would be better. In that classic, albeit stupid, exercise where two cars hurtle toward one another until someone blinks, the resolution is someone turning at the last second.

In state budget terms, the last second was June 30.

Thirty-four days later, this game of chicken is not an example of government cooperation. It’s a car crash while the governor congratulates everyone for excellent driving.

State Rep. Jill Cooper, R-Murrysville, should continue her efforts to get legislators — ideally of both parties — to sign onto a bill that would suspend pay to state officials when the budget is delayed.

“By law, we’re supposed to have the budget done by July 1,” Cooper said. “We shouldn’t get paid if that’s not getting done.”

Absolutely right.

The biggest problem with the July 1 deadline is that it has no meaning to the lawmakers or governor. It’s an arbitrary line in the sand. Stepping over it has no consequences.

Perhaps there was a time when the people who make and implement the law had a vested interest in following it, but that time is long passed. We know that future budgets are just as likely to become another high-stakes competition with both sides racing toward each other, each eager to prove they won’t be the first to swerve.

Without anything that keeps the branches and the parties at the table getting the work done, the game of chicken will continue — with residents and taxpayers the innocent bystanders.