New Pennsylvania budget lawsuit is a long overdue warning shot | John L. Micek

The only thing that's strange about activist Matt Brouillette's legal fight to get the state to live within its fiscal means is that it didn't happen sooner.

Because it's not a toughie: You can't spend what you don't have. And you can't spend more than you have.

Yet for the last two years, as Brouillette, a businessman and a state legislator argue in a newly filed Commonwealth Court lawsuit, the state has been doing just that: approving an annual spending plan that banked on money that has yet to -- or worse -- never materialized.

It's no way to run a railroad, Brouillette, the president and CEO of the Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a Harrisburg advocacy group, said during a a sit down with PennLive, because it "leads to distorted and perverted policy-making."

"It's not how a functioning government should work," Brouillette continued. "So the whole mad dash scramble to find revenue to pay for spending creates perverse incentives."

The past decade of Pennsylvania public policy is replete with such examples.

Last year, for instance, the budget was balanced by banking on a $150 million gambling expansion that never came to pass.  The state's revenues fell further behind when nearly every month collections came in less than anticipated.

Which brings us to this year's general fund budget, which lapsed into law in late June without a signature from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. Nor did lawmakers send Wolf the requisite revenue bill to pay for it.

So, on Wednesday, four months into the fiscal year, the Republican-controlled House approved a Hail Mary of a revenue bill that tries to plug a $2.2 billion deficit and dodge a tax hike by pillaging more than 40 special accounts scattered across state government.

It got the cold shoulder from the Republican-controlled Senate, which passed a revenue bill back in July, with Wolf's backing, that included $570 million in new taxes, including a long-sought severance tax on Marcellus shale natural gas drillers.

Wolf is backing the Senate plan. And he's called on the House GOP to approve it, arguing that it's time to get the job done.

In that, at least, Wolf and Brouillette have something in common: The veteran conservative wants both branches of government, the legislative and the executive, to do the job required by the Pennsylvania Constitution and applicable law.

As a reminder:

The Constitution requires that the governor submits, and that lawmakers approve, a balanced budget. And if that plan is out of balance, Pennsylvania's administrative code requires the governor to "line-item veto any part of any appropriation bill that causes total appropriations" to exceed available revenue and any surpluses.

This is a responsibility so basic that it's mystifying that state government keeps screwing it up.

Brouillette's joined in the suit by Dauphin County businessman Ben Lewis and state Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver County.

Speaking to my colleague, Jan Murphy, Lewis argued that if he managed his finances the way the state runs its budgets, he'd be out of business.

"Out-of-control spending leads to borrowing or tax hikes, which stifle investment and harm hard-working employees in businesses like ours," Lewis told Murphy.

Brouillette's lawsuit names Wolf and the General Assembly, as well as state Treasurer Joe Torsella and Auditor General Eugene DePasquale as co-defendants, arguing that each have let the taxpayers down in their roles as stewards of the public purse.

Granted, Brouillette comes to the table with ... ahh ... certain point of view. The guy has never met a spending cut he didn't like. And, as head of the Commonwealth Foundation for years, he frequently advocated for choking off the flow of taxpayer cash to Harrisburg.

In an interview, Brouillette was up front about that - but he also added that he wanted to continue to have those arguments about major policy issues. But, he added, he didn't think they needed be wrapped into the annual budget debate.

Meanwhile, Torsella and DePasquale warned Tuesday that the state will run out of cash on Friday, leaving it unable to pay $860 million in bills due to be paid. Those officials have said they were "disinclined" to once again authorize short-term borrowing after not having seen any progress on addressing the unbalanced general fund budget.

Brouillette's lawsuit argues that borrowing is illegal in any case because it's taking place without legislative authorization, sending the state further down the financial rabbit hole.

"If the taxpayers are going to incur debt to resolve the 2016-17 budget, which I voted against, that should be a decision of the Legislature," Christiana told Murphy.

In an ideal universe, one where state lawmakers and the executive branch actually paid lip service to the dictionary definition of a budget ("an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time"), Brouillette's lawsuit would be entirely unnecessary.

The sad truth, though, is that it's deeply necessary. The way Pennsylvania runs its budgets is an embarrassment. And every time we look up and wonder why the Keystone State is running to the back of every national ranking list, there's a simple answer.

If you can't nail the fundamentals, you're not going to win at anything else.

It's just that simple. And budgets are as basic as it gets.

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