HARRISBURG Budget battle persists in House

The gambling talks broke down early Saturday.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- State lawmakers say House passage of a new package of budget proposals that would raise taxes by $1 billion will be complicated.
Both House Democrats and Republicans had insisted on the gambling-funded property tax cuts to ease the pain of raising income taxes. But lawmakers said pressure to approve the new package of budget bills -- introduced in the state House today -- would be strong, particularly with $4.2 billion in public school subsidies being held up by Gov. Ed Rendell pending House approval of the legislation.
"Since we are assured by Governor Rendell that he will make an unyielding push for the property tax/gaming legislation in the early weeks of the new year, many of our rank-and-file will probably weigh their options in the balance and consider the unhappy effect of doing nothing," said House Democratic leader H. William Deweese of Greene County.
After negotiations to reach an agreement on a bill to legalize slot machines collapsed early Saturday after all-night talks, the Senate passed a package of tax increases -- including the first income tax increase since 1991 -- to help fund new learning programs sought by Rendell, to restore budget cuts and to avert a deficit.
Gambling talks
House leaders had wanted to vote on a gambling bill, which was intended to raise $1 billion for property tax cuts, at the same time they considered approving tax increases.
House negotiators helped forge the package that passed Saturday, and a spokesman for the House Republican leader, Sam Smith of Jefferson County, said the GOP is in basic agreement with the tax and education-spending provisions.
"It's going to be a hard vote without" a slot-machines bill, said Stephen Miskin. "I'm not going to say impossible but definitely hard or harder."
The gambling talks began Friday and broke down early Saturday after Rendell and legislative leaders could not agree on a number of issues, primarily whether the bill should include gambling licenses for American Indian tribes, they said.
Philadelphia Sen. Vincent Fumo, a key negotiator, insisted on including the licenses. But the idea was opposed by DeWeese, Smith and Sen. Robert M. Tomlinson, who were all involved in the talks. Smith would not allow a vote in the Republican-controlled House on any gambling bill with a provision for American Indian tribes, Miskin said.
"We're not opening the door to Indians," Miskin said. "They have absolutely no place at the table. ... What they have are powerful investors that are trying to get rich and richer."
Too much opposition
Rendell said he realized that too much opposition existed to the idea, and then the budget bills were ready to be voted on and time ran out for negotiators.
"I think the House will have a significant confidence level that we are going to do property-tax relief right at the beginning of the next year," Rendell said Saturday morning after the Senate voted. "I don't think it will pose a problem for the tax bill and the education bill."
The issue of American-Indian gambling arose earlier this year when two tribes, the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Bartlesville, Okla., and the Delaware Nation of Anadarko, Okla., said they wanted to open a gambling establishment in the state.
The tribes, who say their ancestors dwelled centuries ago in what is now Pennsylvania, are backed by investors who have hired influential lobbyists and lawyers to capitalize on a push to legalize slot machines in Pennsylvania. If the tribes are not granted slot-machine parlors by the state, they say they will try to establish a tax-free gambling parlor under federal law.