Question: If your team of reporters turned in an acceptable series of stories on a topic of critical importance, but an editor refused to utilize the stories, who would the public blame? The reporters, the editor, or both?
I ask this because your September 23 Republican Herald editorial blamed the General Assembly solely for the budget “stalemate that they created.” The editorial failed to note the important fact that the General Assembly actually passed the budget legislation and then the Governor decided to veto it, with the resulting long delay that we are now all working to bring to a final bipartisan compromise.
Members of both political parties have given similar answers regarding the real cause of this budget disaster. Last month, another regional newspaper quoted Democratic Senator Lisa Boscola’s conclusion, “This is chaos by the Governor’s design. It’s like he thinks he can help the village by burning it down first.”
I cannot believe that the author of your newspaper’s September 23 editorial really wants to turn their local members of the House and Senate into nothing but a rubber-stamp for this or any other Governor. That question of legislative independence from a strong, opinionated executive was resolved in the Pennsylvania State House a long time ago—on July 4, 1776, to be exact.
We all need to take a deep breath and think about the long-range, negative effects of this terrible budget delay. Republicans and Democrats, House, Senate, and Governor, those who write newspaper editorials and those who read them, we all have to admit that, unfortunately, there is plenty of “budget blame” to spread around. The sooner this budget is resolved, the better.
–Sen. Dave Argall
Contact: Nick Troutman
(717) 787-2637