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House votes down new Wolf plan for income, drilling taxes

HARRISBURG (AP) - Pennsylvania's state budget impasse remains in place after Republicans easily defeated a proposal by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf to raise billions in new taxes in the coming years.

The House voted 127 to 73 on Wednesday against a plan to increase state income taxes and create a new extraction tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas production.

Democrats needed more than a dozen Republican votes but weren't able to keep even their own caucus unified.

Wolf wants new revenues to plug a billion-dollar-plus structural deficit and to send more money to schools and for human services.

Republicans say they don't want to add taxes on working families and warn that a shale drilling tax could harm the natural gas industry.