The following is the prepared text of Gov, Corbett's budget address as provided by his office:
I am here today to talk with you about the future and how to reach it. The path to that future takes us through a present time fraught with troubles. No other General Assembly or Governor has faced the budget challenges that now lie before us. As we begin the 195th session of the General Assembly, and my first budget, we confront an undeniable reality:
A nation that once produced wealth beyond calculation has now produced debt beyond reckoning. The day of reckoning has come. We have work to do.
Our country has gone through a hard recession. And recessions hit state government hardest. People lose jobs. They go on the unemployment rolls. Or the welfare rolls. Sales tax revenues fall because nobody's buying. Because nobody's buying sales clerks and manufacturing workers lose their jobs. Everything spirals. State government is the safety net. That's our job. And we have caught so many of the falling that our net is stretched to breaking.
We entered this year more than $4 billion in debt. For the present, I bring you a budget that has two underlying messages:
One: We have to spend less. Because we have less to spend.
Two: We must tax no more. Because the people have no more to give.
As to the future, the message is this:
If we find a way to reinvent ourselves, in how we do business, in how we grow jobs, in how we treat our citizens, in how we spend other people's money, we will-to borrow a phrase from William Faulkner-not only endure but prevail. We will grow as an economy, as a commonwealth, as a people.
But to do this we have to change the culture of this place. It means we stop the one-time fixes and gimmicks that have barely held the machine of government together. It's time to peel off the duct tape and get to work on what's broken underneath.
The General Assembly has a crucial role to play in this task. We need to share ideas, to build on each other's strengths. This recession isn't going to last forever. If we do the hard things necessary when we are in a windless spot on this ocean, the breeze that is sure to follow will move us all the faster. We need to deal with our problems at the same time we plan for success. And we need to do it now.
