By Marc Stier

To resolve the current budget crisis, we must first recognize the nature of the problem.

Gov. Tom Wolf and the leaders of both Democratic and Republican caucuses in the Senate and the Democratic caucus in the House understand that our persistent structural deficits can only be closed by new, recurring revenues.

Like Republicans in Kansas and Illinois, our Republican Senate leadership understands that continuing to cut state taxes and spending will not lead to balanced budgets, but to an economy undermined by insufficient public investment to educate our children, secure our economic future, protect our vulnerable citizens, and insure that our planet remains habitable.

Unfortunately, House Republican leadership has, so far, failed to understand the problem we face.

Instead, it has continued to say, along with the Commonwealth Foundation, that budget deficits are the result of "out of control" state spending. But that is not true.

Even if one takes into account not just the General Fund but all other state funds - which include a mix of operating and capital expenditures - between Fiscal Year 2000-2001 and the fiscal year that began July 1, state spending as share of GDP has declined from 7.36 percent to 6.91 percent.

Our budget deficits are the result of deep cuts to corporate taxes made over the last ten years. If not for these cuts, the state would bring at least $2.3 billion more a year in revenues, more than enough to have balanced the budget last year, to balance the budget this year, and to address our public investment deficit in the future. We need new, recurring revenues to make up for these tax cuts.

The spending plan enacted this year is far lower than what the Independent Fiscal Office projected to be necessary to maintain state services while also making critical new investments in education and human services. That achievement was a product of Governor Wolf's initiative, supported by majorities in the General Assembly, to make Pennsylvania's government more efficient.

It is true that spending can always be reduced, but the costs of further reductions are simply not acceptable to members of the public or the General Assembly. The House passed an appropriation bill in April calling for less spending than the final bill enacted in July.

But that bill was roundly criticized, not just by Democrats and liberals, but by Senate Republicans, some of the members of the House who voted for it "to move the process along," and the generally conservative leaders of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. And even that inadequate spending bill would not have given us a balanced budget without new revenues.

There are rumors that House members are considering a plan to balance this year's budget by raiding other funds.

This one-year fix is the worst possible idea because it not only pushes the solution to our structural deficit off to another year, but it deepens the problem. House leaders must recognize that we need recurring revenues and bring a tax code bill to the floor. The bill passed by the Senate is a good starting point because it includes a severance tax on natural gas drilling. This is long overdue.

We tax natural gas fracking at a far lower rate than any other state; there is no reason to believe that a modest severance tax would reduce natural gas production in our state.

Even if that tax is passed on to consumers, it would be almost entirely paid by consumers in other states because that is who buys gas produced in Pennsylvania.

The Senate Tax Code bill is not perfect, however, and we encourage the House to fix it. The severance tax it includes is too low. Some of the environmental provisions are deeply problematic and should be changed.

And we share the concerns of some Democrats and Republicans that new and increased gross receipts taxes fall heavily on working people and the middle class.

We have a solution to that last problem - our Fair Share Tax proposal, which would increase taxes on the kinds of income received almost entirely by the richest Pennsylvanians. That proposal raises $2 billion while cutting taxes for 60% of Pennsylvanians and especially for working people and the middle class.

We understand that our tax proposal may not be to the liking of Republicans in the General Assembly.

And we understand that, in a government divided between a Democratic governor and a Republican General Assembly, it is important that everyone - from citizens to public policy advocates to political representatives - recognize the responsibility we have as participants in the governance of this state. We all need to understand that no ideology or interest or party can get in the way of this responsibility and that compromise on all sides is necessary.

To their credit, Wolf and the leadership of three of the four caucuses in the General Assembly understand what political responsibility means. We are all waiting for House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, and Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, to do so as well.

Marc Stier is the director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning think-tank in Harrisburg.