Last week legislators celebrated July 4th by quietly blowing up portions of the budget. Due to a poison pill inserted into the Fiscal Code Tuesday night, sections of budget are fiscally undercooked.

The House pulled out language to expand Medicaid for up to 600,000 low-income Pennsylvanians but inserted language to put same-day lenders back in business.

This was a relief to the Governor who opposed the expansion of Medicaid but didn’t want to veto the budget. Why should he care? TC already has taxpayer-subsidized health care, lives in a mansion and gets chauffeured around in a new “shared sacrifice mobile.”

Here’s the best part: Last year’s budget included $1.7 million in health care subsidies for legislators’ prescription medicine and dental benefits. The House received $1.4 million and the Senate was allocated  $300,000. House members and their families cost taxpayers between $4,543 to $20,420 for heath care per member, per year. State senators and their families costs range from $6,969 to $19,311. (Bucks County Courier Times and PA Independent, July 3, 2011).  Both chambers already receive Cadillac tax payer subsidized health care.

The Senate agreed to drop the Medicaid provision but stopped payday lending and sent the bill to back to the House.

This means the Fiscal Code must go back to the House – which recessed – but has a nonvoting day scheduled for Monday. After July 8 the House is on summer break until September 23.

Consequences: At a minimum, funding for Lincoln, Temple, Pitt, PSU and Philly schools may be held in abeyance. Not good news for students (and their parents) who learned on Monday that student loan interest rates had doubled from 3.4% to 6.8%.

Irony: Many folks without health care resort to predatory lending schemes to pay their medical costs and students will be forced to take out higher interest loans from banks they bailed out.

Here’s a banged-up idea inspired by the Governor and the legislature: Why don’t we change Pennsylvania’ state slogan to reflect the current state of political slothfulness. Maybe our a new motto should read, ““You’ve got a fiend in Pennsylvania.”

PS: The State House announced they will return for a voting session day on Monday July 15th at 1PM.  The House is coming back to continue to work on the unfinished fiscal code that the Senate amended before adjourning for the summer.

Photo by Jen Goellnitz