The partisan back-and-forth over Pennsylvania's weeks-late state budget continued Monday when the Senate took a fillet knife to a $29.1 billion spending plan approved by the House, sliced it to $27.1 billion and booted it back to the House for further action.

Only Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, crossed party lines in the 31-19 vote, which came after sometimes explosive debate among lawmakers over whether the state's path back to fiscal stability lay in trimming spending or expanding programs and boosting taxes.

''The reality is we don't have all the money to fund all the programs we would like to,'' Boscola said. ''Working families understand that.''

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