The budget pumps money into MassHealth, financial aid at public colleges and universities and free school meals, while holding the purse strings on some funds that sheriffs are seeking for their jails and houses of correction.

The Senate filibuster is preventing meaningful legislation from being passed, leading to a government that is not functioning as it should, and executive orders becoming the only alternative.

The state Senate passed a new $47.9 billion budget proposal Tuesday as Democrats warned of the consequences of not fully funding schools and social safety net programs. The party line vote came on the 113th day after the June 30 deadline to pass a spending plan.

House Speaker Matt Hall called the Senate plan "fake" and "political" while touting his work with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to provide $4.5 million to food banks in the state.

The Republican-led Pennsylvania Senate sent a $47.9 billion spending plan to the state House on Tuesday, but the proposal was dead on arrival and deemed “unserious” in the Democratic-controlled chamber,

Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Senate, in a party-line vote on Tuesday, passed a budget proposal that increases spending by roughly $300 million from last year's spending plan, though it faces o

Sen. John Thue, the Republican Majority Leader, lashed out at Democrats for not agreeing to a "clean" budget resolution to end the government shutdown without extending programs Senate Democrats say are worth forcing further negotiation.