Budget Signed
October 13, 2009
Lawmakers are pleased that their budget has finally been signed in the
state of Pennsylvania. It was difficult for them to come to an agreement as
they have such a large deficit that they are dealing with. Each side had
various cuts that they felt needed to be made, while the other side had an
entirely different idea. There was talk of bringing in additional table
games such as poker, which also was met with opposition.
The governor says that he is glad that the budget has been signed, and that
it is almost $27.8 billion in nature. He said that he is aware that the
budget is late, but he feels that “it is a responsible budget.” He said that
it is a half of a billion dollars smaller than the one they had last year,
and he felt in this economic situation that they had done rather well for
themselves with it.
This means that funding for higher education will remain at last year’s
level because they will be able to use federal stimulus money to help them.
They have also added an additional $300 million in new funding for basic
education. It does not have large tax increases which was one thing that
residents were concerned about. Instead they are going to try and bring in
new revenue by legalizing poker and taxing cigarettes. By bringing in poker
and other table games they are aware that they should be able to make up
much of their shortfall in this year’s budget.
They have slot machines across the state in these various casinos, and they
feel that it will be fairly simple to go ahead and add in the table games at
the same time. If all goes as planned, table games and poker will be
legalized and the budget shortfall will be fixed.
