News

July 13, 2009

‘Blue Dog’ Dems growl at Rendell’s plan

Most of about 25 from western part of state oppose income tax hike in proposed budget.

MARC LEVY Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG — As powerful politicians clash over Pennsylvania’s lengthening state budget impasse, members of a small band of largely backbench conservative Democrats are exercising a little muscle of their own.

The so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats in the House have openly defied a call by Gov. Ed Rendell and leaders of the House Democratic majority to support an increase in the personal income tax. And they did so in a building in which rank-and-file legislators generally fear the punishment that might result from thumbing their noses at their caucus leaders.

Many of the 25 or so Blue Dogs are from western Pennsylvania, where many towns are still struggling to overcome the loss of heavy industry. Incomes in the region tend to be lower than the state average and bankruptcy rates higher.

“Our voice has been heard and that’s what we tried to accomplish,” said Rep. Gary Haluska, D-Cambria.

Rep. Nick Kotik, D-Allegheny, said the group’s members had misgivings about defying caucus leaders. But they felt that an income tax increase during such economic difficulty would be so unpopular in their districts that they could not afford to be good soldiers and support it — or even quietly oppose it, he said.

“I don’t know how you justify that to the public, and that’s where we said, ‘We’re going to make a stand here,”’ Kotik said. “I know the leadership doesn’t like it, but my original obligation is to the district. If I don’t represent them, then I’m gone.”

Pennsylvania’s state government is about two weeks into the new fiscal year without the legal authority to pay most of its bills, thanks to a partisan stalemate over how to resolve a multibillion-dollar deficit.

As it stands, Democratic leaders in the 203-member House have stalled in their efforts to gather enough votes — Democratic or Republican — to push through Rendell’s proposal for a $28.8 billion budget.

That plan includes a three-year, 16 percent income tax increase while raising spending by more than 3 percent above what was to be spent in the state’s just-ended fiscal year. Republican alternatives would cut spending by 2 percent and avoid an income tax hike.

Republicans, who control the Senate, are generally hewing to the party line and have reveled in the inability of House Democratic leaders to keep their troops in line.

Asked about the impact of the Blue Dogs, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, said a majority of House Democrats are willing to vote for Rendell’s plan. House Republicans, he said, should supply the rest of the necessary votes to pass it — a measure of bipartisan protection from a voter backlash that top legislators usually demand when taking a risky vote.

The House Democrats’ Blue Dogs, a term originally used in Congress, began meeting loosely a little more than a year ago, Kotik said.

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