{"id":36819,"date":"2026-07-15T21:45:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/philadelphia-area-democrats-buck-party-vote-no-on-budget\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T21:45:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:45:30","slug":"philadelphia-area-democrats-buck-party-vote-no-on-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/philadelphia-area-democrats-buck-party-vote-no-on-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia-area Democrats buck party, vote \u2018no\u2019 on budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania\u2019s $50.8 billion state budget passed Sunday with overwhelming bipartisan support, but two local Democratic state senators broke with Gov. Josh Shapiro and most of their party, arguing the spending plan sidesteps the commonwealth\u2019s biggest long-term challenges.\n<\/p>\n

State Sens. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, and Katie Muth, D-Chester County, praised the budget\u2019s investments in public education and other priorities. But the self-identified progressives said lawmakers failed to confront rising energy costs, affordable housing and public transportation funding.\n<\/p>\n

At Sunday\u2019s signing ceremony, Shapiro described the budget as another example of bipartisan compromise in a politically divided Harrisburg, saying lawmakers had once again found common ground despite significant differences.\n <\/p>\n

Saval said he saw it differently.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that it\u2019s the result of major compromises,\u201d Saval told WHYY News. \u201cIt seems to be the result of avoiding major issues, major policy issues. So actually what I think characterizes this budget is an avoidance of serious issues and serious concerns.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Muth agreed, saying that she believes the compromises made by Democrats were \u201cconvenient\u201d for party members who capitulated to avoid a major fight during Shapiro\u2019s reelection year.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats are going to do, for the most part, what the governor says,\u201d Muth said. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to be critical. That\u2019s a thing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Deferred priorities<\/h2>\n

Saval said one of his biggest frustrations was the absence of new funding for public transit, despite repeated warnings from transit agencies across Pennsylvania that service cuts are already underway or imminent without additional state support. Shapiro effectively punted questions over public transportation funding until next year.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was once again a budget that did not invest at all in public transit, which is especially galling after last year thousands of constituents made their voices heard across the commonwealth,\u201d he said. \u201cThis affects tons and tons of people. So it\u2019s not an issue that we should be deferring action on.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Saval also criticized lawmakers for failing to advance affordable housing initiatives, including proposals supported by Shapiro.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor proposed recently a housing action plan that would issue a $1 billion bond to fund critical infrastructure, including housing,\u201d Saval said. He noted that the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress passed a bipartisan bill<\/a> addressing housing last week.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we ought to be responding to our constituents in the same way,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Muth agreed with Saval but cited additional issues that still remained unaddressed, including underfunded rape crisis centers and impending issues with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, likely to arise from funding cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cPEMA\u2019s 90% funded by FEMA,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere are we getting that money? That\u2019s like our PEMA operating on bare bones. So we don\u2019t have fully funded fire and [emergency medical services], because everything\u2019s volunteer and being bought up by private equity on the EMS side.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! Pennsylvania\u2019s $50.8 billion state budget passed Sunday with overwhelming bipartisan support, but two local Democratic state senators broke with Gov. Josh Shapiro and most of their party, arguing the spending plan sidesteps the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[641,4104,888,26464,1425,17551,26465,14196,1496],"class_list":["post-36819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-buck","tag-budget","tag-democrats","tag-nikil-saval","tag-party","tag-pennsylvania-budget","tag-pennsylvania-legislature","tag-philadelphiaarea","tag-vote"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/nikilsaval-speaking.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! Pennsylvania\u2019s $50.8 billion state budget passed Sunday with overwhelming bipartisan support, but two local Democratic state senators broke with Gov. Josh Shapiro and most of their party, arguing the spending plan sidesteps the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36821,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36819\/revisions\/36821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}