The news from Harrisburg is grim.

This morning, the 11 members of Lancaster County's state legislative delegation painted a bleak picture on a host of state issues.

Speaking at a legislative issues breakfast sponsored by The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the lawmakers took turns delivering bad news on the state budget, health care, immigration, tax reform, Chesapeake Bay Cleanup and other issues.

"We're in a pickle," said state Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong, a Refton Republican and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who talked about the state budget.

Armstrong was the first member of the delegation to address the roughly 60 people at the breakfast meeting at the Lancaster Host Resort & Conference Center. His sobering report set the tone for the litany of gloomy reports that followed.

"We're in a $3 billion hole. We could end up with a $5 billion problem. ... And that's the good news," he concluded.

Rep. Dave Hickernell, who spoke about transportation, offered a moment of levity after hearing dour updates from seven of his colleagues, which included a comment that it was enough to make a person want to jump off a bridge.

"If we don't do something to fund transportation, all you're going to have to do is drive off a bridge," Hickernell quipped.

On the Chesapeake Bay cleanup, Sen. Mike Brubaker said a federal goal to drastically reduce pollution by 2010 will not be met because it is unrealistic.

"We're all working hard — really hard — to fail," said Brubaker, a Warwick Township Republican.

Brubaker is a member of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the legislative body that advises general assemblies in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia on issues related to the Chesapeake Bay. He will be the commission's chairman in 2010.

On health care, Rep. Scott Boyd, from West Lampeter Township, described a House Republican health care proposal that stalled this year because of opposition from Gov. Ed Rendell.

Boyd said that while Rendell is focused on reducing the number of people that don't have insurance, it would be more effective to reduce the cost of health care overall.

On physician recruitment and retention, Rep. Bryan Cutler, of Peach Bottom, said the prospect of litigation and the high cost of medical malpractice insurance is keeping doctors away.

"If we don't have doctors, it won't matter who we give insurance to," Cutler said.

Speaking about city revitalization, Rep. Mike Sturla, the lone Democrat in the county's legislative delegation, offered some hopeful comments.

Going last up to the podium, Sturla said the city is poised to issue a record number of building permits.

And he specifically cited the plans Franklin & Marshall College and Lancaster General Hospital have to expand onto the former Armstrong site, which includes LGH's plan for four square blocks of biotech and medical companies.

"That is the kind of development I want and that is the kind of development that is coming," he said.


Staff writer Chad Umble can be reached at cumble@LNPnews.com or 481-6031.