HARRISBURG — Coming on the heels of a hard-won budget deal for 2025-26, a nonpartisan numbers-crunching agency has issued its annual five-year forecast for Pennsylvania government’s financial future — and within it is a sea of red ink.

The outlook that includes a close-up on the General Fund — the government equivalent of the main family checking account — shows that a hefty $3.65 billion deficit for this year will swell to more than $7.5 billion by 2029-30. Opinions in Harrisburg on what those numbers mean clash so strongly that a repeat of this year’s 135-day budget impasse doesn’t seem like a far-fetched concept.

“Next year will decide which direction this Commonwealth goes,” said Republican Sen. Scott Martin of Lancaster County, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The ch

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