By The PA. AFL-CIO

– The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO reiterates its call to the Republican leadership in the Legislature to stop playing politics and get back to work now in passing a responsible budget that solves Pennsylvania problems. Every day that they continue to stall adds to the costs of providing much needed human services. Social service agencies all over the state are on the brink of either closing their doors or borrowing to provide services to their communities. Costs for child care for working parents, early child learning programs, help for our seniors, people with disabilities and addictions. And our schools especially in our urban and rural areas of Pennsylvania that really more on state funding to teach our kids.

The GOP leadership’s latest offer, amounts to repackaged proposal to cut pension benefits of public employees in exchange for agreement on how much to spend on public education but not how to pay for it. Cutting pensions won’t provide additional funds. And along with the massive cuts to pensions House Majority Leader Dave Reed publicly suggested privatizing wine and spirits stores as a possible way to pay for restoring their cuts in our public schools.

They say that if this is not accepted by Governor Wolf and Democrats, it’s back to square one in negotiations. They’ve never gotten off of square one! Same attacks, just a different day. They still are not addressing the budget deficit in a responsible way or providing the funding to restore the cuts in public education and social services. It’s time to get off of their square and begin negotiating in good faith instead of more of the same political theatre and budget gimmicks. Get to work and start addressing the real issues for Pennsylvania as outlined and addressed by Governor Wolf’s budget.

Source – http://www.paaflcio.org/?p=6347