Treasurer Finally Accepts that Fiscal Restraint is Needed

We at the Commonwealth Foundation are pleased to welcome State Treasurer Rob McCord to the fight for fiscal restraint.

McCord, along with Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, held a press conference today to raise concerns about state finances. While DePasquale in his role as Auditor General is regularly fighting waste and abuse, such as his audit of Scranton’s failing pension plan, this seems to be a first for McCord. The impetus is the state needs to borrow money from the Treasury to pay its bills until taxes roll in. 

This is a real concern, but this is far from the first time the state has been in this fix. In 2009 and 2010, Pennsylvania issued “tax anticipation notes“—borrowing funds with interest until enough tax revenue comes in to pay them off. But McCord issued no warning shot then. He simply signed onto the bond issue.

In contrast, the Commonwealth Foundation has been sounding the alarm for years about the state’s fiscal health, noting the “Four Alarm Fire” facing our commonwealth, and the frequent bond downgrades we are experiencing thanks to a pension crisis and excessive debt. As we’ve noted, this problem has been caused by seven consecutive years of spending more than revenue.

Nonetheless, we welcome Treasurer McCord in the fight for fiscal restraint. The treasurer noted, “the state’s true financial condition is even worse than it appears because Pennsylvania has papered over its problems by draining other funds to balance the last several budgets.”

In other words, this is a long-standing problem caused by decades of excessive spending. We have to put our fiscal house in order.

One good start is the Taxpayer Protection Act, which passed the Senate Finance Committee today. Click here for our fact sheet on that important issue.

Lawmakers should also tackle the critical issue of pension reform. And recent House efforts to reduce the “debt ceiling” on the RACP program—which is essentially borrowing for corporate welfare projects—would be a major step towards fiscal sanity.