Harrisburg, June 28, 2011 – State Senator Judy Schwank (D-Berks) said she voted against the 2011-2012 state budget passed today by the Senate because of its failure to support vital programs for education, job growth and the environment.
“We could have done better with this budget to build for the future and to offer hope to our citizens, and especially to our youth, that a better day will come,” Schwank said. “We left that part of the job, the real purpose of a budget, undone.”
Schwank said that even in the face of difficult financial challenges that required cost cutting, a better job of strategically allocating resources was required.
“Where are the allocations to educating the workforce for the future, the economic development programs that small businesses and major industries rely on to help grow and create jobs, and for land-use planning so local governments can accommodate business growth,” she asked. “In an effort to spread the pain, we might have made it worse than it needed to be.”
Schwank, a former Berks County commissioner and director of the advocacy group 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, voted against the budget worked out in recent days by the governor and Republican majorities in the state Senate and House of Representatives.
She said numerous opportunities to improve the budget were missed by keeping Democrats out of the discussions until the budget literally was ready to be voted on.
“As far as I know, Democrats and Republicans both come to Harrisburg with the same goal to serve the people of Pennsylvania,” she said. “The process used to deliver this budget seems to have forgotten the real reason we are here.”
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