Cops not as important as lottery workers

[ALS]

Here's pop quiz. Who should get paid first when a state is on the verge of financial ruin - cops or folks that work for the lottery? Common sense said that public safety should probably take precedence over gambling. But here's the thing- the lottery generates massive revenues that law enforcement simply does not. In Pennsylvania, the very real possibility that state troopers will not be paid while state lottery workers will be doesn't make any sense at all to John Srsic, a retired state Department of Labor and Industry manager.

But that's just what will happen if state lawmakers can't agree on a budget quickly. "To select a group who are not law enforcement to pay, I can't understand. We can live without those in the lottery. What's more important to the public?" Srsic, 72,told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Governor Ed Rendell is pushing a 16 percent state income tax increase.

Senate Republicans are advocating severe spending cuts and say they will fight any increase in taxes tooth and nail. Penssylvania is currently facing a $3.25 billion deficit. The majority of the state's 77,000 employees stopped getting paychecks last July. Inmates in state correctional facilities however will continue to get paid for working at state prisons.

apb cops-not-as-important-as-lottery-workers

[FormerUser123]

Governor Ed Rendell is pushing a 16 percent state income tax increase.

Holy shit. This would be high enough for me to consider leaving the state. Fat Eddy better get his greedy money grubbing paws out of my paycheck and make due with what he has. There's no excuse for a state to work out of a deficit.

[ROCK-IT3]

Holy shit. This would be high enough for me to consider leaving the state. Fat Eddy better get his greedy money grubbing paws out of my paycheck and make due with what he has. There's no excuse for a state to work out of a deficit.

Thats a 16% increase over what it is now (3.1%?, up tp 3.6%), not a 16% tax. (i don't like any increase either, though)

[RJT]

Maybe y'all are from out of state? It's been common knowledge for the past few months that Rendell and the Dem's were trying to jam through an income tax raise (to 3.5% iirc) and the state GOP refused to consider any budget with a raise to the income tax, hence the months long gridlock...

Also during the dry spell no "state" employees were paid, turnpike (and possibly liquor store) employees WERE paid because they're employed by their respective "agencies" and not considered "state" employees (friend of mine works for the turnpike, I asked) so IF the lottery was paying employees then I would imagine that they are functioning as a similar "entity" that draws it's own budget and doesn't rely on the state budget for payroll...

IF the lottery employees are on the actual state budget payrolls, then they would not have been paid any faster or slower than state cops since the stop gap budget was passed to fund ALL payrolls and certain other things and before the stop gap budget was passed NONE of the payrolls were met.

The article is nothing more than an inflammatory hit piece with no research to back it up.

[NikeBauer21]

Come on people! We need to build more stadiums and casinos!!

[officer64]

One compromise thing they did agree on for the budget stalemate was a 20% tax on small games of chance. These are the strip tickets, keno games, etc. that non profits like volunteer fire companies and some churches, etc. rely on for fund raising. Bingo was exempted from the tax. This will really hurt the fund raising as it might not make it worth the effort to do this type of activities losing 20% in the process.

I'm told that some of the conservative groups in the Comonwealth are livid about the tax and are planning protests about it.

[Dannytheman]

A couple things...

Prisoners make 14 cents per hour, but makes good press coverage.

There is plenty of money, if they take away all the election attracting WAM's in the budget. Multi Millions would be saved here.
I don't want my elected officials giving my money to charities(Tax exempt entities) Millions more saved here.
I want less State Reps making 80-100 grand that get 750 dollars a month for a car allowance and other expenses are all covered. Cut the State Reps in half, Cut State Senators in half too! More millions(Add in the staffers)

[RJT]

what I think they should have done is said "ok, we just suffered an 12% fall in revenues, so all budgets will be cut 12% from what they were last year" (3.5B short on the 28B budget)

new "taxes" are you're hoping to extract money from people who (in a recession) more and more don't have any...at least the red cross knows not to sit in the ER's and ask trauma victims to donate a pint or two of blood while they lay there on the table...now if only someone in the gov could make that connection...

yes, I realize a 12% cut will hurt people relying on the state, yes I realize the police and schools and cities that require regular cash infusions will feel pain, but I'm sorry, my paychecks have dropped in size as have many other people's, and many more have lost their checks entirely...but God forbid we whisper about reducing funding to the public sector in lean times...

[Adam-12]

It's a scare tactic. When they want to raise taxes, they always target fire, police, garbage collection and libraries, to scare the sheeple into thinking they're broke. There's always plenty of money for kickbacks, graft, and sweetheart deals.