By Sean Kitchen

– Yesterday, Budget Guru and House Speaker Mike Turzai claimed that House Republicans are ready for a veto override, but there’s an issue. A math issue to be exact.

“We have to look at overriding if we’re not going to have a substantive discussion,” Mr. Turzai, R-Marshall, said at a luncheon of the Pennsylvania Press Club, adding that Mr. Wolf’s own budget proposal has too little legislative support for negotiators to simply meet in the middle.

“I can assure you that many of my Democratic colleagues are not interested in Gov. Wolf’s tax package, and they would be more than happy with House Bill 1192,” Mr. Turzai said, referring to the Republican-crafted budget. “Some have even privately called it quite responsible. I think that’s a direction we have to consider.”

But here’s the problem. There are 203 members with Republicans holding 120 seats. To get a veto override, House Republicans would need 13 Democrats to defect and override Governor Wolf’s veto, which will not happen because there is one person who came into Harrisburg with a mandate, and that is Governor Wolf. Wolf campaigned on raising a severance tax and among others to fund public education. Republicans claim to have a mandate because of their outrageous majorities, but they do not because of the ridiculous gerrymandering that happened in 2010.

Source – http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2015/07/28/pabudget-guru-mike-turzai-fails-at-first-grade-math/