State Rep. Ryan Warner, R-Fayette, announced April 23 that he was reintroducing a bill aimed at keeping state budget spending in check.

House Bill 1316 proposes an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would establish state budget spending limits that the commonwealth—and lawmakers—would have to abide by each fiscal year. Warner called the measure the “Taxpayer Protection Act.”

The proposed amendment would limit the rate at which state government spending could increase, based on the sum of the percentage increase of the Consumer Price Index and the change in population growth.

“The hard-working taxpayers of Pennsylvania deserve better than what they are getting, which is a broken budget process that results in higher spending each and every year,” Warner said.

“Higher spending equals higher taxes, and that leads to families and employers exiting the commonwealth, leaving us with a smaller tax base to cover the costs of operating state government. This path is simply unsustainable.”

The brake on spending could be superseded by a three-quarters supermajority vote in the Pennsylvania Senate and state House.

Constitutional amendments must clear both houses of the General Assembly in two consecutive sessions and then win approval from voters in a referendum.