Warning from Auditor General and Treasurer Should be Call to Legislative Action, Ryan Says
HARRISBURG – State Rep. Frank Ryan (R-Lebanon) said today that Wednesday’s letter from the state’s fiscal officers – Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and Treasurer Joe Torsella – to Gov. Tom Wolf and lawmakers outlining the dire conditions of Pennsylvania’s finances is a clear message that the state needs to reform the way it spends money and pays its debts.
DePasquale and Torsella, both Democrats, warned that the Pennsylvania’s finances have reached a point that the state could be forced to seek loans from outside government if dramatic changes aren’t made very soon.
The fiscal year ends on June 30, and the state's revenues are more than a billion dollars below expectations. DePasquale and Torsella said the shortfalls demonstrate that state budgets haven’t been properly balanced for several years.
“While I concur with Mr. DePasquale and Mr. Torsella, and thank them for their unbiased assessment of the dire circumstances our state is in financially, the fact is that Pennsylvania’s financial problems started well back to the 1930s,” Ryan said. “In my decades of experience as a CPA, I have developed and implemented successful financial rescue plans for corporations and foreign countries. It is my considered opinion that we have approximately two to four years before solutions are not possible without severe economic dislocations to various sectors of the Pennsylvania economy and government.”
DePasquale and Torsella said that Pennsylvania will soon no longer be able to fill fiscal budget holes by using state resources, and as soon as next month, may have seek money from an outside lender. The interest on those kinds of loans would be unsustainable and quicken the downward spiral that has already taken hold.
Ryan has also written a financial rescue plan for Pennsylvania, and it can be found on his website,
RepFrankRyan.com. The plan, which is also embodied in
House Bill 453, calls for some tough but commonsense measures that may be a bit painful at first, but in the long run will enable the state to once again address critical issues facing its citizens without putting taxpayers at risk.
“I am very encouraged by the auditor general’s and the treasurer’s sense of urgency and desire to see changes made as quickly as possible,” Ryan said. “I would very much like to work with both of them to bring about meaningful reforms on behalf of the taxpayers before it is too late.”
Representative Frank Ryan
101st Legislative District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Charles Lardner
717.260.6443
clardner@pahousegop.com
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