Smart Talk: Wolf budget address preview; First budgets for last five governors

What to look for on Smart Talk Tuesday, March 3, 2015:

Gov. Tom Wolf has had an active first month-and-a-half in office.  The York County Democrat issued what is in effect a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania, scrapped his predecessor’s health insurance plan and said the state will accept money from the federal government to expand Medicaid, and announced plans to reduce the state’s corporate net income tax from 9.9% to 4.99%.

That’s all before Tuesday’s budget address.

A governor’s first budget proposal is highly anticipated because it provides a window into the new chief executive’s priorities.

While not divulging many specifics, Wolf has promised surprises Tuesday.  

The governor campaigned vowing to increase spending for education and enact a severance tax on natural gas drillers to pay for it.

The corporate net income tax reduction would require revenue to be made up for elsewhere in the budget.  There’s speculation the governor may call for increases in the personal income tax — at least for high income earners — and the sales tax.

On Tuesday’s Smart Talk, we’ll get a budget address preview from Ed Mahon, politics and government reporter for the York Daily Record.

Also, we’ll have a history lesson from LNP’s politics and government reporter Karen Shuey who wrote about the first budgets of Pennsylvania’s last five governors.