While there are about 18 ways the situation could be worse, the Independent Fiscal Office’s assessment that Pennsylvania ranks 19th for tax burdens is still disappointing.

Worse still, Pennsylvania’s tax burdens have increased relative to other states from the previous year, when Pennsylvania ranked 21st.

And worse still, a proposed budget that spends down the state’s “rainy day fund” on recurring costs without a clear answer for what Pennsylvania can do in future years, coupled with court mandates to address the funding formula for public education in the state, would almost certainly mean the state’s ranking will get even worse in the future.

As state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, recently told us, “we are taxing people right out of Pennsylvania.”

What the state needs, as Hamm correctly identified, is to begin to make the tough decisions to get the state government’s spending under control. Cutting spending is the first step to correcting Pennsylvania’s course, so that taxes can be lowered rather than increased and so that Pennsylvania can compete to bring more employers and employees into our state.

We are on the precipice for the northeast at being able to make that case: The tax burdens in New York, New Jersey and Maryland are worse than ours and the political climates of these states make serious reform of those tax burdens unlikely.

We need our legislators to stand firm against the spending binge sought by the Shapiro administration so that our municipal leaders and civic leaders are in the best position possible to lure employers from our higher-taxed neighbors.

It’s the right thing to do for our state’s future. Just as importantly, it’s the right thing to do for the hard-working families in the present who choose to call Pennsylvania home.