Pennsylvania Budget Stalemate

On July 17th of 2009, over 75,000 state workers in the state of Pennsylvania only received partial paychecks. The following week, their paychecks ceased completely because the state of Pennsylvania is at a Stalemate.

What is a stalemate? A stalemate is a situation of sorts in which further action of that situation is blocked. This means the cash flow for the state of Pennsylvania has been blocked.

A woman in Chester County by the name of Ronnie Vaughn questioned CBS in an interview, “Why are they messing with people’s lives? That’s what they are doing.” Personally, I believe she couldn’t be more right. Not only does this stalemate affect the workers of the state, but it also affects the funding for foster care, which just recently have been cut down drastically.

The state can no longer afford to pay the families for taking foster children in. In my town, I personally know a foster child. I don’t know how he’s handling this because he’s old enough to understand what’s going on. With this cut, there is a good chance that he will be placed in a foster home with several children as opposed to living with a family.

A family in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, who has adopted four children through foster care, has to deal with trying to make some extra cash on their own for children who are all under the age of seven. Another family in the same county has a total of ten foster children and there is a good chance that they will have to take them back to a home where someone else can afford to take of them.

The state of Pennsylvania is facing a 3.2 billion dollar deficit at the moment. Both the Republican lawmakers and state Governor Rendell have decided to cut spending on both sides of their law enforcement. Rendell wishes to raise taxes by 13% though the Republicans have no desire to do so.

What is the fate of Pennsylvania’s state workers and foster care? Only Rendell can tell us as the state of Pennsylvania sits and waits.