Pennsylvania Budget Secretary Jen Swails spent three hours defending Gov. Tom Wolf’s spending plan – a proposal many Republicans criticize as lofty and unrealistic – before the House Appropriations Committee this week.

The meeting concluded three weeks of hearings with different state agencies over how Wolf’s $37.8 billion proposal, partly funded by a 46% personal income tax increase on the top third of earners, would be spent. The governor’s concurrent call to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next seven years percolated to the surface of the hearing often.