State budget

Gov. Tom Wolf issued his 2015-16 Pennsylvania Executive Budget.

As expected, it appears to feature a delicate balance of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Most glaring to some, though, is a litany of inconsistencies and, in some cases, false assumptions.

For one, his budget touts the state's heavy-handed liquor control operation and compares it to his own private business.

But the state's management and control of the wine and spirits industry is a notorious monopoly.

Monopolies are bad for business for many reasons, but primarily because they restrict free trade.

His budget doesn't acknowledge any of the progressive concepts that would divest Pennsylvania of more than 600 liquor stores and get the state out of the booze business.

Naturally, much of his budget narrative discusses the economy.

In one area, he states: "I do not want to be part of the first generation of Pennsylvanians who have to tell our children that they have to go somewhere else to achieve success."

No worry about that, governor.

You're already part of at least the third generation forced to do that.

Many sources reveal that Pennsylvania reached its height of economic development by 1920. Then began the decline.

The Depression hastened that decline. Things haven't been looking too rosy since then. In fact, in the 1980s, we've been linked to a region of the country known as the Rust Belt.

Of course, there's always room for improvement, and the governor says he'll listen to input from other viewpoints.

"I welcome ideas from my Republican and Democratic colleagues," he says in his budget.

That's nice.

But he might want to expand his horizons by welcoming thoughts from Independents, Libertarians, tea party activists and folks of diverse political affiliations.

Also disturbing is his characterization of the state as highly urban as defined, he says, by 2013 statistics.

"The commonwealth is highly urbanized ... 79 percent resided in the 15 Metropolitan Statistical Areas."

Truth is, Pennsylvania is highly rural, not highly urban.

Most Pennsylvanians live in small towns. Don't be fooled by the term MSA.

An MSA is simply a geographical designation for the purpose of statistics.

An MSA might be composed of many small towns. But they're still small towns.

Several small towns do not equate to an urban area, whether in culture or economy.

There are many positive points contained in the budget.

An attempt to lower property taxes is one of them.

But even there, critics warn us the governor's attempt is temporary, more of a "bait and switch" tactic than a permanent lowering of property taxes.

Hopefully, the budget can be tweaked to reflect attainable goals, and perhaps measures in the budged can be more fully explained.

In the meantime, a first step would be to correct some glaring false assumptions.

By DONALD R. SERFASS

dserfass@tnonline.com