Editorial: Why can't Pennsylvania pass a budget on time?

The legislative process in Pennsylvania can take awhile.

Government, after all, is not just about getting two parties to work together. It’s not even about the governor and the Legislature rowing the boat in the same direction.

There is also the challenge of focusing 253 lawmakers on the task at hand — especially in an election year.

That is why bills that are introduced can linger in committee and languish in debate. A great idea that everyone agrees upon can have trouble moving through the glacier-slow process. “Schoolhouse Rock” might have taught a generation of kids how bills become law, but it didn’t adequately prepare them for how slow and tedious the process can be.

Then there’s the budget. This is a bill that should take no one by surprise. It must be done to keep the wheels of government turning. The budget is behind everything that happens, from paving the roads to plowing them, from educating kids to caring for the elderly, from the passing of laws to their enforcement.

And the deadline is a hard and easily anticipated wall. July 1 is the start of each fiscal year for the state, meaning the budget must be passed by June 30. This isn’t unusual. The state demands school districts, which operate on the same calendar, pass their budgets by the same date. A district that blew by that line in the sand, not passing a budget until well into July or August or even December, would face backlash from its residents and the state.

Yet, the Pennsylvania budget is an annual game of chicken between the lawmakers and the governor. The Keystone State is unsettlingly comfortable with operating without guardrails when it comes to its spending plan.

So in a move that should surprise no one, Pennsylvania started the 2022-23 fiscal year Friday without a budget. Again.

Why?

The budget has become something other than an exercise in accounting, evolving into a weapon that legislative and executive branches use to bludgeon each other. They act like children, howling at each injury, pointing fingers and shouting, “He started it!” when called to account.

It is long past time that these antics stop. While Republicans might think it makes the Democrats look bad and vice versa, they are both wrong.

It makes everyone in Harrisburg look out of touch with the reality every household knows all too well. When bills are due, they have to be paid or the lights get turned off. The water is cut. Eviction occurs. The kids go hungry.

Pennsylvanians understand the importance of making and abiding by a budget. Harrisburg needs to do the same.