Commonwealth Common Sense

A tour of Pennsylvania's schools

2012-01-26T11:57:00.000-05:00

As parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders discuss solutions to the fiscal crises facing Commonwealth school districts like Chester Upland, and with Gov. Corbett's second budget address just weeks away, here are some photos provided to the Education Law Center in Philadelphia by students from the schools and communities where we educate our children.

Last year's budget cut education by nearly $1 billion, and in an inequitable way. Chester Upland received a per classroom cut of over $28,000, while nearby district Radnor Township was cut by less than $1,000 per classroom. But Chester Upland isn't the only district struggling.

If Gov. Corbett was serious when he said "every child regardless of zip code or economic status, should have access to the best education possible," then 16 miles shouldn't be the difference between a great education and no education at all.

The library at Lower Merion High School (2011).

The library at Olney High School (2008).

The auditorium at Harriton High School (Lower Merion SD, 2011).

The auditorium at McKeesport High School (c. 2007).

Community around Lower Merion School District.

Community around York City School District (2008).

Staff Memorandum #1, 2012

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Staff,

Happy New Year. Many of you have indicated that you cannot find words to describe the successes of my administration’s first year and are requesting a reminder in the form of talking points.

Rest assured it has been a great year, starting with my approval rating among voters hovering below 50%. More importantly, my approval rating from Marcellus Shale drillers remains at 100% (cha-ching $$).

Even the venerable Capitolwire gave me an “A-” for the year! I’ll be sure to call on its reporters first if I ever hold a press conference.

If by chance you find yourself in a pickle and are stuck talking to the press about something other than my successful adoption of puppies, feel free to draw from the list of accomplishments below.

Healthcare and Public Welfare:

Dusting off the chopping block early: Even before introducing my first budget, I successfully kicked 42,000 working Pennsylvanians off their health care. Those residents combined with the 43,000 kids my DPW chief kicked off Medical Assistance in August will endear me to Pennsylvania conservatives for years to come.

Public Safety

I am undoubtedly the public safety governor, if you need a refresher Google my post-Sandusky national news appearances and I’ll tell you. As Attorney General I established the Child Predator Unit, which of course was successful in capturing countless would-be predators, like a longtime Senate Republican aide, and when there are actual witnesses to a child rape I took the strong stance of convening a Grand Jury to investigate… for 3 years.

As AG, you may have heard me say, "public safety is the single most important service that government can provide." But that was before I was in charge of budgeting. Unfortunately Pennsylvania may have to persevere with fewer State Police, since I may lay-off 400 to 500 troopers in 2012 (make that 399 to 499 layoffs…need to keep one handy in case we need to reinvestigate the Sandusky case or to play taxi service).

Transportation

I kicked off 2011 with a strong statement on transportation and you can count on me to do something about it…in 2013. My plan to reduce the state fleet started with Commonwealth One, the Rendell era bus. Let’s be honest, with the poor condition of Pennsylvania’s roads and bridges, that bus was a major hazard. Never mind that many of the vehicles are for law enforcement or snow removal, and that many fall under the Attorney General’s jurisdiction, which I bulked up when I was in the driver’s seat.

And because the former governor’s SUV broke down a couple of times, I decided to purchase four new SUVS for me and the lieutenant governor, and our spouses, at a taxpayer price tag of $186,000. Have you seen my sweet ride?!?!

Finally, it is critical to refer to anything my administration proposed as an accomplishment, even if it wasn’t actually achieved. And when in doubt blame someone else. Remember jobs lost are actually jobs gained under my leadership, a cut in state education funding is actually the federal gov’ts fault, and I alone passed the budget on time!!!

Thanks, and here’s to a great 2012 with just as many proposed accomplishments.

Sincerely,

T.C.

The 11 biggest disappointments of 2011

2011-12-18T16:27:00.000-05:00

(The PA GOP edition)

After claiming their victories in November 2010 would lead to smooth sailing for their agenda and jobs, jobs, jobs, Pennsylvania’s GOP leaders in Harrisburg found little success in implementing their policies and increased unemployment as a result of their agenda.

Mike Turzai said that there would be “…significant cooperation between the House and Senate in resolving a number of issues,” and then threatened any possible cooperation when he questioned top Senate Republican Joe Scarnati’s GOP credentials by telling the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, "He likes to spend money, he likes to borrow money, and he's not afraid to increase taxes."

But with every faction trying to outrun the other to the far right, it’s almost 2012 and very little’s been done. And it turns out voters have some buyer’s remorse.

Here is my year in review to highlight 11 big disappointments of GOP leadership.

Number 11: Health care hypocrisy

Remember when less than a month into Corbett’s tenure, 42,000 working Pennsylvanians received word they would soon be kicked off their affordable adultBasic health care coverage.

Diverting tobacco settlement funds away from their lawful use under 2001’s Tobacco Settlement Act, the Corbett Administration found it is in its heart to allocate funds for big business bonus depreciation and the mysterious Liberty Loan Fund, but not to help subsidize the successful and needed program aimed at keeping Pennsylvanians healthy.

Even more shocking was when Corbett appointee and at-the-time Acting Insurance Commissioner Michael Consedine asked the feds to waive some requirements of the Affordable Care Act in order to help Pa’s newly uninsured. The same Affordable Care Act that former Attorney General Corbett joined a lawsuit to repeal and the same federal government that he claims meddles too much in state business.

Number 10: Redundant Redundancy

In a letter dated Dec. 8, 2011, the Governor addressed the issue of the number of boards and commission in PA…I can only assume that someone whispered in his ear that this was the pressing issue facing the state.

The state Senate considered this issue at a hearing last March, looking for ways to streamline government and then they dropped out of the parade. So yes, the governor 9 months later decided to get out in front of the issue.

In his letter Gov. Corbett, who by the way has created several commissions during his brief tenure (which due to his inaction have added little value to residents) introduces his novel idea for weeding out these unnecessary boards and commissions -- create a task force to conduct this important job.

Yes, create a task force to study the excessive number of commissions.

If this task force resembles the governor’s other commissions, it is safe to assume that he will pack its ranks with colleagues and contributors.

Creating commissions is something the governor has truly excelled at. Earlier this fall, the Philadelphia Inquirer asked if perhaps Gov. Corbett is overly dependent on the commissions he creates. Respected experts concluded that commissions are useful only if their advice is heeded.

But Corbett falls short on follow through. He has taken months to review the report, before deciding to not act at all. Perhaps that explains the sunset provision Corbett wants to include for all future boards and commissions, to limit the time he needs to ignore their reports.

…maybe he should create a commission to weed out wasteful task forces.

Number 9: If a commission issues a report and Corbett didn’t write it, does he have to read it?

See number 10.

In April Gov. Corbett’s announced the creation of his Transportation Funding Advisory Council. In August the TFAC issued its report. And finally, two months later, in October Corbett announced he would do nothing.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, despite our state’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure and having convened a committee specifically tasked with developing options for investing in our roads and bridges, Corbett said transportation is not a priority for this year, reversing his position from last April.

For a man so focused on public safety and fiscal responsibility, how did Corbett decide that structurally deficient bridges can wait and that convening a commission only to disregard its recommendations made sense? Maybe it’s because the commission said he should actually do something.

Number 8: Allowing the far right fringe to run your agenda

It is pretty clear Republican Leader Turzai can’t get his number one priority passed (giving away an asset that generates $400 million for the state each year), what better way to distract the public from his failure than to allow the gentleman from Butler to commandeer the headlines.

The GOP State Government chairman has used his new position as a bully pulpit for the far-right issues that won’t contribute to improving our economy, growing jobs or protecting our environment. Issues like passing a marriage protection amendment, making English the official language and passing a Voter ID bill.

The chairman has also repeatedly stolen the show for his famous feuding with the committee’s democratic chairwoman. On one occasion he asked House leaders to censure her for having the audacity to express her differing opinion.

Kudos to Rep. Turzai, if you’ve got nothing good to say, say nothing at all…or better yet let Rep. Metcalfe say it for you.

Number 7: If you can’t win fair and square, change the rules

See number 8 (Voter ID).

With the record turnout for 2008’s election and the voter registration advantage Democrats hold in Pa. if passing a Voter ID requirement doesn’t marginalize the urban and low income voters who tend to lean Democratic, maybe a change to the Electoral College will.

The Senate GOP Leader’s plan to have Pennsylvania change its “winner take all” system and join Nebraska (which by the way wants to return to the winner take all system) as the only state which divides its electoral votes among candidates, is not only bad for Pennsylvania’s clout as a swing state, it is opposed by most Pennsylvanians and by Republicans in the PA congressional delegation.

A proposal like this could help the Commonwealth go Republican in the 2012 presidential race (for the first time since 1988) but it would cost our state millions of dollars in campaign ads and visits, and rank our importance somewhere in the neighborhood of the electoral powerhouse of Wyoming.

Number 6: You can’t hide from YouTube

GOP leaders in Harrisburg have gotten caught up more than once in reversing their previous stances. But in the Internet age, especially with the advent of YouTube, it is all too simple for the public to review that campaign commercial or swearing-in day speech.

Gov. Corbett got hit day 1, literally for his “Day 1” campaign commercial, which proclaimed that as governor Tom Corbett would “hand Harrisburg his reform plan” his first day in office. The small print must have read “plus or minus when I get to it.”

Or Mike Turzai’s poignant remarks delivered on the House floor on swearing day 2011. I encourage you watch the entire 10 minutes, because not only does the Republican leader wax philosophical about decorum on the floor needing to be “respectful, professional, and civil,” but declares the chamber’s focus would be on “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Neither of which describe what actually transpired under Republican domination in the House in 2011.

Number 5: Parliamentary shenanigans

See number 6 (Turzai).

With the words respectful, professional and civil still lingering in the air, Republican leaders in the House shirked their own pledge for fair debate and embarrassed the legislature. By using hostile parliamentary tactics, the GOP has effectively silenced the voices of millions of Pennsylvanians.

Here’s a look at the numbers.

In 2011 alone, House GOP leaders have led the march to stop debate immediately for a vote (moving the previous question) 9 times.

To put this in context, from 1961 to 2010—in 50 years in the House at times controlled by Republicans and at times by Democrats -- this maneuver was only used a total of 30 times.

This is just one example of the strong arm tactics Republicans have employed to keep Democratic ideas from being considered. They’ve systematically shut off the consideration of any idea they’re opposed to by raising the issue of germaness, they’ve repeatedly held meetings in rooms too small to fit legislators, staff and reporters and that are not equipped for broadcast, and even voted to change the number of Democrats assigned to committees.

The House GOP prefers to throw up road blocks rather than legitimately consider a democratic idea.

Number 4: If it looks like a cut and quacks like a cut…it might just be a Republican turkey

Everyone knows the governor’s budget last March slashed education funding by historic and unsustainable proportions. In a move that shocked even Republicans, Corbett unwisely placed both basic and higher education on the chopping block.

According to Corbett, educating our children is a “nice to have” not a “must have.”

But for those same Republicans, who voted to cut basic education by a billion dollars and our State System of Higher Education by 18%, to claim they “restored” funding to education is an attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes and rewrite history.

Make no mistake: GOP leadership is no friend to your children being saved by public education.

The GOP further boasted that their June budget was free of tax increases…for an alternate perspective I invite you to talk to one of the thousands of residents who saw local taxes go up as a result of smaller state allocations to counties and municipalities. And now that all the school districts have spent all their reserves and laid off teachers and coaches and janitors, wait until you see what happens to local taxes next year!

The governor made a similar move when he cut homeless assistance by millions of dollars but made time for a photo op to serve Thanksgiving dinner to those spending the holidays in our Commonwealth’s homeless shelters.

Number 3: Cheating our children

Conservative think tanks and Republicans leaders allege to be fighting for the kids in “failing” schools by backing an expensive and unproven voucher proposal, which would actually steal more money from those same schools their feigning to rescue kids from. This is the GOPs second act in attacking the students they claim to be fighting to save.

If their billion dollar cut to basic education wasn’t insulting enough to Pennsylvania residents, the GOP failed to implement the cuts in an equitable way. Low income rural and urban districts saw cuts in the neighborhood of $25K per classroom, while the wealthy districts of GOP leadership sustained classroom cuts of less than $1000 per classroom, widening the disparity and punishing kids for having the audacity to be poor.

It’s disingenuous to cut funding for public schools and later assert that you want to help those students by enrolling them in unaccountable private schools.

The few students who would benefit from vouchers attend school every day in the distressed districts that voucher bill proponents cut funding for in June.

Number 2: Flip-flopping on fees

When the state House approved what the Patriot-News labeled a "pathetic” plan to not regulate and impotently tax the Marcellus Shale industry in November, Americans For Tax Reform pledge-signer Tom Corbett issued his full support, despite Grover Norquist’s staunch objection who issued a letter to lawmakers saying HB 1950 “does not pass the laugh test when it comes to trying to claim this as a fee.”

Almost comically, in front of PA Press Club audience in November, Corbett claimed that he had always been onboard for an assessment on natural gas drillers, even challenging reporters to review his statements on the campaign trail... too bad for the governor, they actually did.

According to Capitol Ideas last month, in March 2010 Corbett said his no tax pledge included a prohibition on fees, but in July 2010 the Associated Press reported that Corbett decided the pledge didn’t include fees.

The one thing Corbett has consistently been clear about is his desire to make Pennsylvania more like Texas … which may make you scratch your head since unlike the Commonwealth, Texas levies a 7.5% severance tax, that is 650% higher than the tax in the governor’s plan; Texas also levies a local property tax on the value of the gas under the ground, which garnered over $2 billion for local governments there last year.

Number 1: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

An epic failure at their self-proclaimed top priority.

For a caucus so focused on getting Pennsylvanians back to work, the House GOP has a poor record in 2011.

By any measure Mike Turzai and his caucus have done more to destroy jobs than their policies have done to create them. The proof is in the numbers.

As a direct result of the GOP-back state budget 14,000 education professionals lost their jobs.

Unemployment in Pennsylvania grew consistently for the quarter following the passage of the GOP-backed state budget in June.

Beyond their pathetic performance at getting the Commonwealth’s 500,000+ unemployed residents back to work, state Republicans are trying to add more Pennsylvanians to the ranks of the unemployed.

This year they’ve attacked workers’ rights, tried undermine unions, aimed at lowering wages, and want to eliminate 5,000 family sustaining jobs.

Maybe GOP legislators are taking their cues from Gov. Corbett and trying make our Commonwealth more like Texas, which had a $25 Billion budget shortfall in 2011, an unemployment rate higher than Pa’s, the lowest wages in the nation and where a quarter of the population is uninsured.

Giddyup – here’s to 2012

On the menu this Thanksgiving: Hypocrisy

2011-11-30T12:55:00.001-05:00

Below is a segment courtesy of CBS21.com showing Governor and First Lady Corbett serving dinner to several hundred people at the Water Street Mission in Lancaster last week.

In his budget that passed in June, Corbett cut aid for homeless assistance by $2.2 million. Therefore assuming employees at the Water Street Mission earn the state minimum wage, the Corbett's would each have to volunteer for about 72 years at 40 hours p/wk, 52 wks p/year in order to make up for the $2.2 million.

Click here to view the CBS 21 footage.

Return to Texas

2011-10-19T09:36:00.000-04:00

One silver lining to the GOP presidential debates inundating the airwaves is that we get to hear politicians and pundits distinguish fact from fiction in regards to the business friendly, economic boomtown and supposed utopia Gov. Corbett refers to as Texas.

Gov. Corbett has modeled many of his overdue and inadequate policies on the Lone Star state and gushs over it as a policy paradise. But as is often the case, the claims coming from the Corbett (and Perry) camp need some fact checking.

Marcellus matters

The Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission chief, Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley made it clear from day one that the extraction tax that 70% of Pennsylvanians support and that every other state has was “off the table.” After the group issued its report, Cawley explained that the Commonwealth’s business climate simply is not as “friendly as Texas,” therefore we can’t implement a tax on natural gas drilling similar to theirs.

What Cawley didn’t consider is that Texas, unlike Pennsylvania has closed the Delaware Loophole. PA’s failure to do so allows 70% of C corporations to operate here tax free. It further demonstrates the Administration’s focus on corporate rather than Commonwealth interests. In Pennsylvania, a family earning $33,000 a year pays more income tax than 85% of all registered C-Corporations, many of which are multi-state and multi-national corporations that pay taxes everywhere else.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs?

The Corbett Administration and PA GOP leaders have sought to emulate Texas by repeating their mantra: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. And while it is true, Gov. Perry’s Texas did grow jobs in Texas, nearly a quarter of those are public sector jobs like those that the GOP is seeking to slash through Leader Turzai’s liquor privatization plan and Corbett’s historic cuts to public education, which resulted in over 14,000 jobs lost. In addition to job creation, Texas also is tied for #1 the country in the number of low wage workers.

Healthy Texans

And despite all those jobs, only 48% of Texans have private health insurance, and more than a quarter have no insurance at all. Texas’ GOP leaders have been slashing the eligibility for government-sponsored insurance like CHIP over the past decade leading to nearly 6.5 million people without health care, a majority of which are employed fulltime. Now it’s easy to see why Gov. Corbett decided to eliminate adultBasic for 41,000 working Pennsylvanians last spring.

Women’s Health

Pennsylvania’s conservatives have also set their sights on making PA hostile to women’s health like Texas, where the 71 family planning clinics receiving government funding are often referred to as abortion clinics even though NONE of them actually perform abortions. The result of failing to fund prevention methods, like basic contraceptives, means Texas spends more than any other state on teen pregnancies. So while the legislature debates the regulating of women’s health clinics right out-of-business, less of Pennsylvania’s women will have access to mammograms, cervical cancer and blood pressure screenings, and HIV testing.

Maybe the American public will get the opportunity to judge the Texas miracle for themselves, maybe not. I’m confident Texas’s formula is not as good for Pennsylvania’s communities as it is for the multi-state corporations working here. One thing is certain for the Corbett and his GOP partners, as the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” In this case, the facts just don’t support the misguided opnion.

Gas and Gaming

2011-10-04T14:03:00.000-04:00

Imagine an industry wants to move into your state. It has incredible potential for revenue generation and job creation plus ancillary benefits like increased hotel occupancy and small business opportunities. But with the good comes the bad, the industry will fuel additional costs, like overloading public safety. But some of those costs can be mitigated through preparation and smart regulation.

Pennsylvania has had two such opportunities in the past decade, but GOP leaders insist on treating them differently.

Early in the last decade when the gaming industry came knocking on PA’s door they could have gone to other states, but they decided on the Commonwealth. And since then households ACROSS Pennsylvania are benefitting, not just homeowners in a casino host municipality or county.

In the 5 years since Pennsylvania’s first slots parlor opened, the gaming industry has paid more than $1.3 billion annually in taxes, has directly created 15,000 Pennsylvanian jobs, and has actually surpassed New Jersey, Nevada and every other state in gaming revenue. The gaming industry also pays for gambling treatment, extra police services, a local revenue share and have spurred the rejuvenation of another entire industry, horse breeding.

Anecdotally, gaming enthusiasts have noted Jersey tour buses parked in Commonwealth casino lots.

And get this: PA taxes gaming at the highest rate in the nation. Interestingly enough political contributions from the gaming industry are banned in Pennsylvania.

So when you hear the Gov. Corbett and others argue that if we tax the natural gas industry (like EVERY other natural gas state does), they’ll pack up and leave, know that it is inaccurate and misleading.

Unlike the gaming industry, natural gas drillers have limited options on where they can locate. Pennsylvania is situated upon what is estimated to be the largest natural gas deposit in the world and alone could fuel the nation’s energy needs for a decade. The gas industry is here to stay even if there is a severance tax…they have said so publicly.

Natural gas is an abundant source of domestic clean energy, and the industry has created jobs and stimulated some local economies, but it has escaped paying its fair share (as it does in other states) for the negative effects of drilling including the increased burden on local emergency responders, the deterioration of our roadways and the degradation of the state’s water ways.

Senate GOP leaders have made implementing an impact fee they’re autumn priority, but their plan is limited, insufficient and would operate differently than other taxes levied by the state, and the governor’s “parameters” are designed for counties, not state government.

Why should an extraction fee favor one Pennsylvanian over another when all residents’ water supply is being polluted?

Why shouldn’t a portion of the tax levied on drillers go to serving the entire state, the same way a portion of the state’s gaming tax benefits people across the Commonwealth or tolls from the turnpike, or sales tax levied at large malls? And why are some GOP leaders still apprehensive to levy a tax that exists in every other state, and that even industry executives say are reasonable and expected?

Why does the GOP insist on treating the gas industry differently?

Could it be that we have not yet banned political contributions from this industry, or maybe we just need to banish Grover Norquist from the state?

An Autumn Crystal Ball

2011-09-18T08:29:00.000-04:00

The state House returns to Harrisburg next week. And since it recessed for the summer, our kids have returned to schools with fewer teachers and larger class sizes, the number of unemployed Pennsylvanians has grown and through a series of weather-related events, flood waters pounded every corner of the Commonwealth causing property damage and needless deaths.

Coincidently (or not) public education funding was slashed, job training programs were cut and money for flood control projects was eliminated in this year’s state budget. All while hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were left unspent, waiting for some other “rainy day”.

The GOP-led state House has repeatedly proclaimed its focus as “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” yet there is little evidence that any of the “meaningful” measures they claim to have passed since taking control in January have gained any traction in the continued effort to produce jobs.

It shouldn’t come of much of a surprise that a group focused on passing legislation to root out near non-existent voter fraud, expanding the Castle Doctrine, and shuttering women’s health centers hasn’t found much success on the job creation front.

So when the House returns to Harrisburg on Sept. 26, what has the Majority Leader touted as his top priority?

•             Lowering the tax burden on Pennsylvanian small businesses by closing the Delaware loophole –no;
•             Ensuring more working Pennsylvanians have access to health care – nope;
•             Protecting our state’s water supply – guess again;
•             Finding solutions to cure our state’s deteriorating transportation infrastructure -- not right now.

GOP Leader Mike Turzai announced in July that his top priority for this autumn is liquor privatization. A plan that would immediately kill 5,000 family sustaining jobs, more than double the number of liquor stores, and do nothing to guarantee lower prices, but would almost definitely drive up public safety costs across the state.

Only time will tell if Republican leadership will pick up the pace in passing legislation that favors Pennsylvanians over private interests, that values transparency over backroom bargaining, and deals with the Commonwealth’s most pressing problems instead of political preferences.

PA GOP launching a war on words

2011-09-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

Despite their frequent and fruitless efforts, with the GOP at the helm I think little threat exists that English will be declared the official language of Pennsylvania. If it were, it would be more challenging for Republican lawmakers themselves to misrepresent the rhetoric they’ve embraced since January.

The GOP has made distorting definitions an art form.

For instance House leaders wouldn't be able to characterize the expiration of federal stimulus dollars as a "federal cut" anymore. ARRA was a one-time grant for states to use, not money states could count on forever. So GOP claims of “cuts” from the feds are misleading and disingenuous.

For a time it was trendy in GOP circles to congratulate one another for restoring education funding -- which left everyone else in PA scratching their heads because everyone knows the GOP supported a $1 BILLION CUT in education. Only in the GOP alternate universe can you claim a massive reduction is actually a restoration.

More GOP-speak is the use of the word "gimmick." By House and Gov. Corbett’s standards “gimmick” easily translates into whatever tactic the opposition (be it Senate Republicans, Democrats, or the federal government) is using to make their point, no matter how logical and sound, it’s a gimmick.

Also in the world of Republican rule, there is no such thing as a surplus (except when one of your leaders slips up and calls it a surplus). New lingo: “revenue over estimate” made its appearance last spring in order to describe the excess taxpayer funds now sitting in a government bank account waiting for a rainy day while our kids endure larger class sizes, people can’t afford health care, and entire communities have literally been underwater.

Also in the gun toting, papers-checking, rights-denying Pennsylvania imagined by some lawmakers, the GOP used some "fuzzy math." You can call a $27.6 Billion budget a $27.1 Billion budget; and you can characterize an $800 million bonus depreciation giveaway to big business as only $200 million. In their minds, it all adds up.

Speaking of adding up, under Gov. Corbett the Harrisburg colloquialism formerly known as "WAMS," has been renamed and redistributed. Under new management WAMS have become the Liberty Loan Fund (synonym: slush fund).

With an obvious flair for deceptive communications in their first year, I can barely wait to see how many new words and phrases crop up in 2012. One thing is clear, while Republicans rewrite the dictionary and Senor Metcalfe tries to score an appearance on Fox News, both are distractions from solving the Commonwealth’s actual challenges.

More DC input on PA's tax burden

2011-08-10T12:05:00.000-04:00

Grover Norquist was revealed months ago as the puppet master pulling the strings behind the policy decisions of Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania. Lawmakers across the country, including 34 right here in Pennsylvania (plus one enthusiastic Governor) took an oath to represent the interests of a Washington, DC lobbyist rather than the people who elected them.

Well it turns out there is more than one voice coming out of Washington on Pennsylvania's tax policy. In a report by the Tax Foundation, a self-proclaimed "nonpartisan tax research group based in Washington, D.C.," (judge for yourself), Pennsylvania was found to have the 10^th highest tax burden among the 50 states at 10.1% of a resident's income paid to the state. Who tops the list: New Jersey (home of Gov. Chris Christie, the darling of Tea Party enthusiasts).

The report makes some interesting and useful statements regarding the balance states choose when generating tax revenue from out-of-state sources, versus in-state sources. Like other states with a high resident tax burden, Pennsylvania tax policy allows for "non-residents" like out-of-state industries, natural gas drillers etc to get away without paying much.

As a result the percentage of the total taxes paid in PA, 23.7% are paid by non-resident sources, while residents like you and me get walloped with covering the remaining 76.3%.

The Foundation's definition for "total tax burden" on an individual includes both state and local taxes, so it's worth noting while Corbett and others quibble over detail in regards to what is a tax versus a fee and whether Grover approves of the state budget, according to the Tax Foundation Corbett's "no tax pledge" gets lumped in with the countless local property tax hikes his budget is responsible for.

Further, many people like Gov. Corbett would claim the Commonwealth has an unfair tax environment for business, but in the far more conservative corner of the country, Alaska, residents cover a mere 20.5% of taxes; non-residents: 79.5%. The report even notes that in Alaska, "State residents get the equivalent of subsidy from some of the world's largest oil companies."

The report points to several solutions to lighten the load on residents. Spoiler alert: one of them is impose a tax on the natural gas industry. But in reality, several solutions exist that would favor the Pennsylvania resident as opposed to out-of-state retailers, manufacturers, and users of Pennsylvania goods and services.

Here are a few that I've been repeating for a very long time:

· True, PA has the highest corporate tax rate, but we don't require combined reporting. So any company with a semi-competent tax attorney knows if they HQ their company in say Delaware, then they escape paying taxes in the Commonwealth. Seventy percent of all "C" corporations operating in PA pay NO taxes, and 84% pay less than a family of 4 earning $30K p/yr. If Pennsylvania closed this loophole, we could lower the burden on our state's homegrown small businesses...increasing the burden on "foreigners" and lessening the burden on people in our own community.

· Along those lines, what's crazier than not taxing big box retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Home Depot? Paying them to do business here! These vendors get to keep 1% of the sales tax they collect, just because they pay the state's share of sales tax that they collect on time. This costs the Commonwealth $70 million p/year. A blanket exception for a reasonable portion of this would insure that small, in-state retailers could keep this incentive while reaping tens of millions of dollars from the big guys.

· Pennsylvania remains the only state that does not tax cigars or smokeless tobacco. We also don't tax funeral services, dry cleaning, manufacturing equipment or gold bullion. While all of these goods and services may have legitimate claims as to why they were exempted from taxes in the first place, they all merit review.

All of this is to say, Pennsylvania's tax system could use a complete overhaul which would bring it into the 21^st century. Unfortunately the current regime can't utter the word "tax" unless they ask Grover Norquist first and it's preceded by the word "No", so the chances of PA improving on the Tax Foundation's list of tax offenders anytime soon is slim to none...but that won't keep me from talking about the insanity of the Republican agenda as it is currently being foisted on the citizens of this great state.

A great way to celebrate America.

2011-07-06T16:26:00.001-04:00

"I don't fashion myself a clever man. I don't really care to do clever procedural maneuvers. I'd rather us have straightforward, civil policy debates to recognize the difference and then to let democracy take hold."

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai

January 4, 2011 Swearing In day

There will be plenty of time over the course of the next few months to discuss in great depth the truly detrimental cuts to schools and services in this year's Republican budget. There will be an endless of supply of negative consequences that result from the plan endorsed solely by the GOP, and its effects will be felt this year...and for years to come.

But this past weekend's Independence Day celebration provided the perfect time to reflect on the governing style and choices made by the current Republican leadership in Harrisburg, policies which would surely cause the founding fathers to turn over in their graves, or make the new generation of revolutionaries around the world question what they're fighting for.

The words spoken by the House Majority Leader on swearing in day (example posted above) were cast aside almost immediately.

Under their Leader, House Republicans have "called the previous question" (a means to shut off debate) a record-setting 8 times in the past 6 months, eclipsing every YEAR since 1961. This procedure used to be employed sparingly, a total of 30 times between 1961 and 2010 -- 30 times in 50 years. At the current rate, the House GOP will call the previous question 32 times in this 2 year session alone.

This and other overused combative tactics endorsed by the GOP are an abomination to the democratic principles our Commonwealth and nation were founded on. As a result House Republican leaders have tarnished our institution; the oldest in the nation and one where Ben Franklin once stood at the helm.

Even with near-guaranteed passage of their politically-motivated agenda (think Voter ID, limiting women's health centers, eliminating adultBasic) they have acted in a way to silence the Democrats, and the millions of Pennsylvanians who elected them.

They've made a mockery of House rules by over-utilizing questions of germaneness and the previous question, and by establishing new precedent setting interpretations of the rules to make amendments out of order. They have limited transparency by holding meetings in tiny rooms without broadcast capability when larger rooms are available. And they've destroyed the civility of the chamber by not allowing every member to debate a bill.

The Majority Leader said himself during his Swearing In remarks that by being elected members are given the privilege "...to be able to vote and be able to introduce bills and be able to debate in a setting like this [House chamber] on public policy."

And that there is "Nothing more important than participating in debate."

And finally that, "We need to be respectful, professional, civil. We need to focus more on the policy at hand; less about the show....To move the agenda forward we need the participation of everyone."

If nothing, in fact, is more important than the ability to debate, how can someone defend shutting off debate so consistently?

A Democratic colleague noted it's is a good thing the House Republicans were not in Philadelphia in 1787 to call the previous question during the four-month debate on independence, or the Constitutional Convention would have had a dramatically different outcome.

In the end the GOP achieved what it desired at all cost, an on-time budget, regardless of the detriment to the institution, its governing principles and most importantly Pennsylvanians. In the end, this budget is so bad it can't be justified by any means...but the means used to get to it aren't justified under any circumstance...not in a democracy.

Prioritizing Promises

2011-06-27T17:41:00.000-04:00

Some things happen so consistently you can set the clock by them: the sun rises in the east every morning, there are fireworks on the 4^th of July, and during the last week of June the Capitol is filled with lobbyists, lawmakers and camera crews.

This June 30 the average Pennsylvanian will be forced to determine how to come up with more tuition money, how to care for grandma now that her services in the nursing home have been cut, and how to afford their increased property tax bill.

I've heard a lot of Republican promises from the governor and his band of loyal legislators in the first 6 months of this legislative session, and for many no promise was more prominent than an the budget process would run like the trains in Mussolini's empire.

With overwhelming majorities in both chambers and a budget surplus that exceeds anyone's wildest expectations or hopes. What's the hold up?

The GOP's far right contingent found time to advance its conservative agenda: limiting abortion, strengthening firearms laws and limiting victims' rights. The House GOP even found time to approve a voter suppression bill.

But how do GOP leaders determine which promises to keep and which can be brushed aside?

The governor made plenty of high-profile promises beginning on the campaign trail.

On Day 1, we anticipated the governor's reform package ...because that when Gov. Corbett promised that he'd deliver it. We got a press release a week later saying he supported some things that others already planned to do.

Gov. Corbett also promised to shrink the number state fleet vehicles. Keep in mind, as Attorney General the number of state cars in his department actually grew by 12% from 445 to 499, while declining for other row offices.

One of his first and few press conferences involved auctioning off Commonwealth One (3/30/11 press release), and a commissioning a statewide review of the state’s vehicle fleet in an effort to reduce the cost of government. That's also about the time that 4 SUVs, totaling $186,000 that the governor had ordered, were delivered to Corbett, his top lieutenant and their wives.

Perhaps the most well known of the governor's promises was made last fall and has been repeated at pretty much every public event the governor has graced with his presence – No new or increased taxes. He and 34 state lawmakers took the Norquist Pledge. At a debate last October, Corbett made it more than clear that in addition to taxes he would "... not increase any fees. Not now. Not ever."

Last week Corbett drew Grover's admonishment over a plan to increase hospital assessment fees; but Norquist reneged and said as long as you lightened the load on someone else, the fee could be hiked for hospitals...so why doesn't that apply to a Marcellus Shale tax that would be used to lessen the burden on Pennsylvania taxpayers.

So what's a guv to do?

Supposedly the 26% of Pennsylvanians who voted for Corbett did so because of his NO tax stance (not his slash-and-burn education strategy, his collapsing of budget line items at tactic to hide where money is going, or the creation of his personal WAM account, the Liberty Loan Fund).

But now 70% of Pennsylvanians support requiring the out-of-state natural gas drillers to pay their share. So do you upset your base or 70% of Pennsylvanians?

Only time will tell, but one thing is clear (even to a guy who's been kept in the dark) even if a budget does pass on time and promises are kept, by and large the promises fail a majority of Pennsylvania.

Is this the voter fraud the House GOP had in mind?

2011-06-22T13:58:00.000-04:00

Voter fraud in Indiana

Just as Gov. Corbett had a yearning to be like Texas…at least until he learned that they have a gas drillers tax…and a mineral resources property tax…and a recently enacted fracking fluid identification law, it is clear, after three days of debate on the ill-conceived voter ID legislation, that House Republicans are Indiana wannabes. At least that was the case yesterday…

Timing is everything -- in addition to the endless issues House Democrats illuminated on the House Floor this week, it seems like voter fraud is a thorn in the side of even Indiana's top election official, Republican Secretary of State Charlie White.

While PA GOP members fight to enact a law to combat a nonexistent problem with voter fraud here at home, Mr. White is defending himself against allegations of voter fraud in Indiana. Whoops. It may be too late for the House Republicans to pull a Rosanne Rosannadanna-esque “never mind,” but they should give it a try.

Mr. White used an address on a voter registration form for the May 2010 primary that didn't belong to him. The address belonged to his ex-wife, and was NOT in the same district as the new condo he owns with his fiancée. In his defense of using the old address for political reasons, Mr. White's attorney admits White used his ex-wife's address as his mailing address, but his new condo as his physical address. Mr. White is defending himself in front of a state panel this week, and faces an August trial on criminal voter fraud and perjury charges.

Here’s the sad part. The $10m taxpayer funded voter ID bill that House Republicans in Pennsylvania are embracing doesn’t address this type of fraud. The bill they are pushing would require guys like Indiana Republican Secretary of State Charlie White to produce a photo ID to vote…which he did… The problem was not that he was who he said he was when he voted…the problem was that he was casting votes for people in a town where he wasn’t a resident.

The $10 million photo ID requirements in the Pennsylvania bill geared more toward voter suppression than the impersonation voter fraud that Republicans hypothesize, would do nothing to remedy this very real kind of voter fraud.

House GOP leaders delayed this bill as long as they could, but, needing budget votes from the Paranoid Delusional faction within the Republican Caucus, we now find ourselves devoting hours to debating a voter suppression bill, rather than, you know, discussing a state budget.

But you can take solace in knowing this week Pennsylvania GOP leaders are making it more difficult to vote, but easier to shoot someone.

Hypoco-lypse Now

2011-06-17T11:32:00.000-04:00

We're for it... we're just against paying for it

With contributions from Rep. Steve Samuelson

I've waxed philosophical many times in this blog about the PA GOP's hypocritical policies and actions. For example, when my GOP Policy counterpart said our "surplus is extremely good news and a great sign," only to have other House GOP leaders claim a few weeks later that there is no surplus.

It turns out these bouts of hypocrisy aren't apparent just to readers of this blog, but to others! My colleague Steve Samuelson provides me regularly with examples of when GOP rhetoric just doesn't correlate with their actions. Below are a few of the most atrocious we've encountered.

Providing for Providers

On May 24, the Pennsylvania Community Providers Association (which represents 225 community-based organizations providing or supporting mental health, intellectual disability, substance abuse, children’s, and other human services) held a press conference in the Capitol calling for the full funding for community-based human services in this year's budget. Several House Democrats stopped by and spoke in favor of the funding restoration.

We were joined by a lone House Republican from Montgomery County, who spoke eloquently in favor of funding these valuable community-based services, and who a few hours later voted for a budget that cut these services.

Bowling for Food banks

On June 6 the Bowling Proprietors Association of PA teamed up with the state's food banks to "strike out hunger," drawing awareness and donations. A lane was set up in the Capitol's EW allowing 80+ legislators to bowl. Democrats and Republicans, senators and representatives all participated in the fun. The BPA's donation of $25K will be especially useful as more and more Pennsylvanians are visiting food banks and because just two weeks prior to the event, the House GOP voted to cut the State Food Purchase Program by $339,000, likely hurting the 805,000 households who used the program in 2009.

Swing for hypocrisy

Pennsylvania has poor marks as far as cancer screening and deaths. To make matters worse the House GOP budget cuts Cancer Screening Services by 14.9%. Despite the cuts, 57 House Republicans found it in their heart to co-sponsor a resolution (prime sponsored by a Lycoming GOP lawmaker) supporting "Take A Swing Against Breast Cancer Month." They're likely depending on the annual fundraiser to make up for their own 15% cut.

There is great speculation that next week is "it" week...budget week. Signing the state budget next week fulfills the Gov. Corbett and Majority Leader Turzai's pledge to have an "on-time budget" no matter how many Pennsylvanians it hurts.

A lesson in ignoring Grover Norquist, courtesy of the Lone Star State

2011-06-13T15:35:00.000-04:00

As we know progress in Pennsylvania on the GOP agenda has been a little slow. No one anticipated that the 3 arms of GOP leadership in Pennsylvania could bluster so much prior to the election about how they would do things differently if elected, and do so little about it after they were elected.

Some of that inactivity may have more to do with pledges that Gov. Corbett, GOP members in the House, and to a lesser extent, members of the Republican Senate took to constrain their own flexibility by limiting their own tax policy to an Amish-like mentality that freezes taxes in time, never to be changed...unless downward...not even allowing the substitution of a new rational tax for an old irrational one.

But even in Texas (Gov. Corbett's favorite state south of the Mason Dixon, and maybe anywhere) Gov. Rick Perry has encountered an obstacle keeping his Republican majorities in line with the Luddites.

Last week the Texas House defied the governor's veto of a measure to expand the sales tax to a number of Internet retailers who heretofore didn't collect sales tax. This by the way sounds like a pretty good idea especially to the Main Street retailers who feel the pinch of "no tax" competitors.

Maybe it's just that GOP chief executives aren't used to being responsive, or maybe because they're only held accountable to voters every 4 years. But one thing is for sure, Gov. Corbett can expect more of these GOP-clashes in his own state if he continues to value his pledge to Grover Norquist more than he values the opinions of Pennsylvanians.

Lights, camera, action – it's show time GOP

2011-06-06T17:10:00.000-04:00

I'll be honest, I didn't vote for any Republicans in last year's general election, but if I had I'd be mighty disappointed, just like everyone who didn't vote for the Republicans or just stayed home. PA Republicans, like many of their comrades across the country, claimed that the voters had spoken and they had a mandate to govern. Well we're 6 months in so far, and their successes have been minimal, if not nonexistent.

With control of both chambers of the General Assembly and the Governor's Mansion, the PA GOP said they were ready to lead and could finally achieve all of their conservative priorities like:

· Balancing a budget by simply cutting waste, fraud and abuse

· Implementing a school voucher plan

· Privatizing the state's liquor industry

· Tort reform

· Blaming poor and working Pennsylvanians for all that is wrong in the world, and

· Handing out more corporate welfare

All, with the underlying Norquist-pledge of no new or increased taxes.

But from the House side of the Capitol, instead of making headway on these issues, we're hearing more progress on initiatives like Voter ID, abortion clinics and the Castle Doctrine.

Even the governor told WHYY during an hour long interview, he's a little bummed out the first bill he signed was repealing the Sprinkler Law.

Don't get me wrong, these are all perennial conservative favorites too, but they're just not the "two jobs and a voucher" in the pocket of every Pennsylvanian that the Republicans had promised.

So what is the hold-up?

Believe me I know what the House GOP is dealing with -- working with the Senate Republicans is no walk in the park, after all their caucus consists of some independent thinkers and responsive legislators, who by House and Gubernatorial standards seem like reasonable people who actually understand the concept of governing.

And Gov. Corbett certainly hasn't done any of them any favors either, from his proposed increase to welfare spending and ridiculous cuts to education, to creating a new commissions to study the topic du jour, in addition to selecting campaign contributors and staff family members for high level appointments, and his refusal to even consider Marcellus Shale impact fee or tax. He definitely was a distraction from the Republican talking points.

Recently, House Republicans have boasted the supposed "early passage" of their draconian budget plan, which was been panned by Senate leaders since before it was even approved.

So while some of the GOP big ticket items are in a holding pattern for now, my guess is the Republicans will manage to pass a budget on times as predicted...albeit one that makes little or no sense for Pennsylvania families.

The House Republican Budget: a series of false claims, mistruths and inconsistent statements

2011-05-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

As if listening to the House Republicans defend their budget on the House floor wasn't enough, I'm a glutton for punishment and spent some time over the past few days reading and watching their media spin...press releases, newspaper interviews and television segments.

I've heard a number of claims and inconsistent statements which bear repeating, primarily to correct the record.

Claim #1, The Republican budget restores education funds slashed by Gov. Corbett.

As a trained architect, I know a thing or 2 about "restoration." And I know if I had only done a demolition of a home and claimed it was a restoration, I'd be in for a lawsuit. So when the governor's budget called for cutting education by $1.6 billion, it was hard for the House GOP not to do better, but to claim they restored the education cuts is bogus. The Majority Appropriations Chairman and budget's author, backed off such claims at the one meeting the committee held to examine his plan, the GOP doesn't provide a "restoration" at all, the GOP's plan amounts to schools receiving $900 million less than last year.

Of course if I were a member of House GOP's leadership whose school districts got cut to the tune of $39 a student versus, low income districts cut by $2443 a kid, I'd probably be ok with the budget reduction too.

And you know your plan is flawed when the Senate Majority Leader, Republican Dominic Pileggi says he thinks the Senate can do a better job of allocating education funding (he represents both of the above school districts, by the way).

Claim #2, The passage of this budget puts PA on a path to an on time budget.

I've read a couple statements from Republican rank-and-file Norquist-pledging cult member freshmen say that passing this budget is "another step in the process to deliver a budget on time."

If passing a budget on time were just about when the House passes a plan and it moves to the Senate, I guess when the House passed its General Appropriations bill March 24 last year, a full two months before the GOP this year, we were really on the right track. It took an appalling 9 weeks for the House GOP leadership to introduce this failing plan.

What freshmen don't realize is that we in the House have no control over when the Senate acts, and no control over how they'll amend the House Republican's budget.

We've seen already that Senate leader's intentions run counter to what the governor and House GOP back, whether it be a Marcellus Shale fee or use of the $500 million surplus.

It seems the House GOP is more concerned with an on time budget than a quality budget. But if having it enacted by June 30 is their goal, I wouldn't rest so easy just yet.

Claim #3, Is it or isn't it a "surplus"?

Any number of Republicans stood up on the House floor last week and said the Democrats were mistaken, the $500 million extra dollars of tax revenue the Commonwealth has received through April wasn't a surplus; it was simply revenue over projection.

I'm guessing not all the Rs received the same talking points, because in a press release dating May 10 from the GOP Policy chairman it was referred to as a "surplus" and "...as extremely good news and a great sign..."

It is not every day I agree with my GOP counterpart, but this time he is right.

Claim #4, There are no projects like the Arlen Specter Library in the Republican budget

I still hear some of my colleagues in the GOP leadership sounding off about projects from last year under Gov. Rendell like the Arlen Specter Library (at Philadelphia University) and the John P. Murtha Center for Public Policy (at Pitt's Johnstown campus), which were scheduled to receive a combined $20 million, would have spurred construction and economic growth, would have been at institutions higher learning in the Commonwealth, and were approved by Senate Republican leaders. Important to note, nearly a year later, funding for these projects has still not been awarded, and likely won't be.

What I haven't heard is equal aggravation about Gov. Corbett's $2.1 billion slush fund, the Liberty Loan Fund, a repeated topic of this blog. The Republican Appropriations chairman admitted publicly he knows nothing more than the minority party on this fund, but still included it in his budget plan. And further, other than being a gimmick to give the governor unabated control of economic development monies, read: WAMS, it is partially funded through from Tobacco Settlement monies, which are supposed to go to health related purposes, like adultBasic, which was eliminated in March.

So where is the House GOP's rage on the Liberty Loan Fund?

The House GOP wanted its turn to lead, but leading doesn't include looking in the rearview at the last governor's administration.

House GOP continues its long tradition of implementing solutions to problems that don't exist

2011-05-17T16:29:00.000-04:00

The budget clock is ticking, and after 9 weeks House Republican leadership finally introduced their own version of the governor's failed spending plan: Corbett-lite.

Despite the delay in their budget intro, the House GOP has been aggressive in embracing every opportunity to take on the standard catalog of conservative policies: repealing federal health care, gun legislation, welfare trimming, and abortion; often with limited time or opportunity for public examination or comment. Is this transparency?!?!

Just last week the state House passed an oversimplified solution to a problem that, while gruesome, under current regulation shouldn't have been allowed to occur in the first place. Attach the word abortion to a debate, and watch people fall into place.

2010's Gosnell abortion clinic tragedy was horrific. Innocent women and babies harmed and killed by a rogue and reckless "doctor." It was national news, and no doubt should never have happened. But redefining abortion clinic, widening hallways, and making rooms bigger would not have prevented the tragedy.

The legislation that passed this week will do little more than close women's health facilities, which, yes may perform abortions in addition to pap smears, cancer screening and provide prescriptions, and thereby limit the availability of these services to low income and rural women.

A similar law in Texas passed in 2004 essentially forcing the shutdown of 80% of the state's providers, compelling women to seek care out-of-state or illegally, and often unsafely.

Philadelphia's Grand Jury report, which allegedly sparked this legislation, found that the Gosnell clinic was allowed to continue operating due to the state Department of Health's failure to exercise its already existing oversight over abortion clinics.

If the Department of Health was negligent in its responsibility to enforce regulations to protect the health and safety of patients as the Grand Jury concluded, changing those regulations doesn't prevent a problem.

Even Philadelphia D.A. Seth Williams said the Republican-authored legislation went beyond the scope of the Grand Jury report.

The Republican chairman of the Health Committee and his colleagues know "abortion" is a hot button issue, and with the House of Horrors Gosnell platform, overregulation was an easy sell.

The purpose of abortion regulations should be to protect women’s health, not to shut down safe providers and limit legal health care options to women and families across Pennsylvania.

But this week's abortion debate is just another example of the House GOP slamming through its agenda without public discourse, avoiding the real challenges, all at the expense of the Pennsylvania people.

Does Corbett's elimination of HEMAP funding make "cents"?

2011-05-10T16:37:00.000-04:00

There is little debate that the foreclosure crisis and the subsequent collapse of the US housing market were among the most devastating negative consequences of the national economic downturn. An article this week on MSNBC.com predicted that even with a recovering economy the number of foreclosures will continue to worsen and experts cite it as the second-biggest drag on the economy after fluctuating oil prices.

Pennsylvania has been ahead of the curve in responding to home foreclosures. Since 1984 the PA Homeowners Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program has helped keep 44,000 families in their homes by providing bridge loans to people who had lost their jobs. As a result Pennsylvania has had a considerably smaller number of foreclosures in comparison to its unemployment rate. For instance, with a record number of applications in fiscal year 2010, PA had the 26^th highest unemployment rate but was 37^th in foreclosures.

HEMAP has been praised as far more effective and economical than the federal Home Affordable Modification Program. For a hypothetical mortgage of $210,000, HEMAP costs the Commonwealth an estimated $1,620; HAMP comes with a cost of about $13,600 for the feds.

Further evidence of HEMAPs success: 80% of loan recipients have retained ownership of their homes. And HEMAP loans do not accrue interest until the borrower has found employment.

So the question remains why when the housing market is just beginning to recover and the threat of foreclosure still looms, and when Pennsylvania has a successful, affordable and enviable program, would the governor's budget plan eliminate its funding?

Chef Corbett's chopping block -- targeting programs that brew billions of bucks

2011-05-06T11:00:00.000-04:00

Tom Corbett's record-setting and reckless cuts to education have received national attention since they were introduced in March. Programs like pre-k and full day kindergarten and staff like librarians are being scrapped across the state as districts struggle to reduce costs.

Beyond education however there are dozens of other proven, revenue-generating programs where funding is being cut or eliminated -- programs where underfunding could have a negative impact on the economic recovery of our Commonwealth.

Is Corbett's half-baked plan to underfund tourism a recipe to spoil a leading PA industry?

It is no surprise that tourism is Pennsylvania's second largest industry: from our celebrated historical heritage to our treasured tradition of hunting; from our spirited urban centers to our restful rural farmsteads.

In fact Pennsylvania welcomes 175 million visitors every year, generating $3.4 billion in travel and tourism-related state and local taxes alone. The industry employees more than 400,000 residents and yields a total economic impact $33 billion.

The question is if the tourism industry can produce these economic benefits after suffering a 70% cut. While Corbett goes out of his way to cook up a gourmet business climate for the out- of-state natural gas drillers, who by the way contributed a paltry $218 million last year according to the governor's own specially commissioned Dept of Revenue study, he leaves the homegrown Pennsylvania tourism industry with table scraps.

Poorly-funded tourism leaves Pennsylvania less competitive with other states like Virginia and Michigan which are boosting their investment to spur more visitors. It seems the governor is only interested in attracting transients from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas to exploit our natural gas, pay taxes elsewhere and depart when their job is done.

Here is the first in a series of posts exposing the pennywise pound foolish cuts being embraced by PA's GOP leaders.

Gimmicks and WAMs: the Top 5 problems with Governor Corporate's $1.9 billion fund for friends

2011-05-04T15:30:00.002-04:00

5. $220 million would be transferred from the state Tobacco Settlement monies in order to fund a portion of the Liberty Loan Fund. Up until March 1^st adultBasic was partially funded by the Tobacco Settlement Fund, which under law is earmarked to go to health-related programs. AdultBasic could have been extended until July for $56 million.

4. During his budget testimony, campaign contributor and PA polluter-turned DCED Secretary C. Alan Walker and his staff hinted as to an additional $110 million to be transferred from the Tobacco Settlement Fund which the governor failed to mention in his budget address. This brings the total to $330 million in health-related dollars being diverted.

3. The governor wields the majority of control in appointing members under the initial plans for the Liberty Loan Fund board, which could limit bipartisan representation on the current Commonwealth Financing Authority.

2. The terms of each loan may be done through the regulatory process and not the legislative process, thereby eluding legislative oversight.

1. The Liberty Loan Fund amounts to a budgetary gimmick to create a WAM account for the governor to use to dole out money to his big business friends.

Gov. Corbett's greatest hits: a retrospective of the guv's first 100 days

2011-04-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

Looking back it is hard to believe that Gov. Corbett has been in office a scant hundred days, when those hundred days have been so memorable.

On this occasion here's a review of some of the governor's most infamous acts.

After his swearing in on Jan. 18 and his campaign promise to introduce his reform package on Day 1, many expected it on -- Jan. 19. However Gov. Corbett introduced his first major initiative a week late and in the least transparent way possible: via press release and pre-recorded video.

His staff brushed off criticism claiming people misunderstood his campaign promise -- after all "Day 1" is confusing. His staff also said "He's [the guv] going to make announcements when he thinks something is important..." clearly reform didn't rank high on his agenda. A 2^nd indicator of the importance of reform: appointing his campaign manager's dad to a $196K per/year job.

After Corbett's decision to introduce his 1^st major initiative via video, it wasn't a surprise when a month or so later he started barring the public, Capitol staff and lobbyists from his press conferences.

In February the administration's priorities were made even clearer. First with the elimination of the affordable health insurance program, adultBasic, for nearly 42,000 working adults; and then the corporate giveaway, bonus depreciation, to the tune of $200 million for big corporations (see The governor can’t find money for adultBasic, but he found over $200 million for big business).

Finally March rolled around -- time for the big "No tax" budget address.

In his roughly 8 page speech, Corbett managed to propose cutting basic education by $1 billion (see All education cuts are not created equal ), reducing the state's appropriation to state colleges by 50% (see Corbett should treat higher education the same way he treats other industries), and named his devoted campaign contributor-turned-DCED secretary C. Alan Walker as the final voice in all permitting issues affecting potential job growth (see Corbett appoints a Supreme Decider). Notably absent in those 8 pages...transportation. PA's nearly 6000 structurally deficient bridges weren't on Corbett's budgetary radar screen.

Four months of planning for this?

In the weeks following the infamous budget address, which was generally ill-received, the governor made a few missteps, or actually miss-statements. He's continuously shown admiration for the Lone Star State, but has failed to familiarize himself with its basic policies -- like its severance tax, combined reporting and property tax (see If you wannabe like Texas, you gotta (en)act like Taxes and Oops he did it again... )

Despite his staunch opposition to a severance tax (he doesn't care what 70% of Pennsylvanians think, he made a No Tax pledge), the governor did promise a group of municipal officials that he'd keep our water clean. The same day as his promise, his DEP chief said the natural gas industry could continue to send their polluted wastewater for an additional 30 days to our state's treatment facilities, although they're not equipped to treat the water, which eventually flows to our streams and rivers.

Oh, and then Chesapeake Energy's well exploded in Bradford County, releasing tens of thousands of gallons of polluted water across the landscape (see Heckuva a week for Marcellus Shale reporters). But Gov. Corbett did create the Marcellus Shale Commission to explore the industry in PA... but stacked with it industry execs, who accumulated over 500 violations last year.

Now the governor waits. His commissions meet, his GOP brethren debate legislation, and the governor crosses his fingers that his budget will get enacted in his next 100 days.

Oops he did it again...

2011-04-26T09:08:00.000-04:00

The governor misspeaks when he pays homage to his favorite state in the union... Texas.

Gov. Corbett has made no secret of his desire to put on a cowboy hat and be more like the Lone Star State, after all one of his first actions as governor was to board a plane and party with Range Resources at this year's Super Bowl.

What the governor hasn't done is research any of Texas' policies and regulations before he speaks about them.

As earlier blog posts have enumerated, in addition to having a severance tax on natural gas drilling, a tax on mineral rights and having closed the Delaware loophole a few years ago, Texas, unbeknownst to Gov. Corbett, levies a property tax. A property tax that as Michael Woods of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center pointed out last week, was worth $40 billion in 2009 according to the Texas Comptroller. It comprises nearly 50% of all tax revenue generated in the state.

The math works out to more than $2 billion generated from the property tax on natural gas assets in 2009 (assets tapped and untapped) for TX, in PA that same property garners zero income for the state. Pennsylvania does have a corporate net income tax, however 85% of oil and gas corporations that filed CNI tax returns paid nothing.

As the governor has pointed out tax policies between the states don't allow for exact apples to apples comparisons, but we do know natural gas companies pay their share of taxes in Texas (and other natural gas states). There has been no mass exodus of drillers out of Texas to go where they can frack for free, which incidentally is only in PA.

Despite the differences in policy, one conclusion can be drawn: natural gas drillers do better in the Keystone State than the Lone Star State because the Commonwealth fails to tax them.

A heckuva week for Marcellus Shale reporters

2011-04-22T17:43:00.000-04:00

For the past few years Marcellus Shale has been a fixture in the Pennsylvania headlines: to tax or not to tax, what exactly is fracking, and are we growing jobs for Pennsylvanians or borrowing workers from other states?

This week has been an especially busy one for shale-related stories.

Gov. Corbett kicked it off Monday when he told a gathering of township supervisors in Hershey, “I will not let them [gas drillers] poison our water.” And in what had to be a Homer Simpson “D’oh” moment while Corbett’s words still lingered in the air, Tuesday a Chesapeake Energy (Oklahoma City, OK) well exploded in Bradford County, forcing evacuations and releasing drilling fluid (the chemically-treated variety) across the terrain.

Don’t worry though, the company responsible for the spill said initial tests indicated the blowout had little impact on local waterways. It now seems however, that Chesapeake’s conclusion was premature, and they now have voluntarily suspended fracking at all their wells in PA, and DEP is awaiting test results on the local water supply.

Earlier on Tuesday, the AP reported that DEP has asked the largely out-of-state natural gas industry to stop sending its contaminated water to 15 of the Commonwealth’s treatment facilities, claiming they’re simply not equipped to treat the tainted water which eventually makes it to our rivers and streams. The state agency set a May 19 deadline for the industry to stop…in others words, we know you are poisoning our water, but go ahead and keep poisoning it for another 30 days. No report if the DEP’s request ended with “pretty please with a cherry on top.”

The DEP request came not a moment too soon since the industry group Marcellus Shale Coalition, reported the same day that it believes wastewater from drilling is at least partially responsible for heightened levels of bromide in Pittsburgh-area rivers.

Call it unfortunate timing but even with a well blowout and admitted pollution this week, the Pennsylvania Game Commission announced on Wednesday that natural gas companies deserve more access to our valuable shale formation and opted to lease additional state lands to Marcellus Shale drillers for over $18 million which will remain in the Game Commission coffers.

The drilling industry has repeatedly demonstrated they require more oversight. We need to adopt a zero tolerance pollution policy. Maybe revenue generated from a severance tax could go toward increased monitoring, enforcement, and clean up of spills, unfortunately for current Pennsylvanians and the future of our Commonwealth, the governor took a “no tax pledge.”

Corbett's dysfunctional family values

2011-04-19T11:57:00.000-04:00

Recently, many people (including the governor) have compared Pennsylvania's budget negotiations to that of a belt-tightening family sitting around the kitchen table making decisions on where to cut back.

Besides the fact that it is precisely economically challenging times like these when more families turn to Pennsylvania for a variety of assistance options -- from LIHEAP to higher education grants to unemployment compensation (and up until March, adultBasic), there are other inaccuracies with this overly-simplistic Beaver-Cleaver family comparison.

If you do choose to adopt the premise that running the Commonwealth, with its 12 ½ million people, is like that of an average family there are other flaws with the governor's comparison.

First, a family wouldn't leave a potential revenue source on the table. If your spouse came home one day and told you that they lost their job or had their hours cut back, sure you'd sympathize with them and look for ways to trim your budget, but you wouldn't just hunker down in a fit of depression...you'd encourage them to find a new job or supplement the family income with another revenue source to replace the lost income. So the "PA family" should be smart with the revenue it has, but also consider options for generating additional revenue, like a severance tax on Marcellus Shale. Especially when 70% of residents agree.

Similarly, you wouldn't allow your able-bodied 28-year old, who is still living at home for free to continue to do so without helping out with the family budget. And you certainly wouldn't give them an extra $50 a week in beer money to further deepen your revenue shortfall. But that's exactly what Gov. Corbett and the Republicans are doing.

They are refusing to close the Delaware loophole allowing corporations to make profits in Pennsylvania without paying taxes here, they are handing out bonus depreciation allowances to the tune of $200 million+ p/year to their corporate contributors, and are allowing big box retailers to keep money that customers paid in sales tax by calling it a "vendor discount."

Another thing your family wouldn't do is invest a lot of money in a product with unproven outcomes. Yet, the GOP is considering instituting a school voucher program, rather than maintaining the investment in our state's public schools, which have demonstrated measurable improvement over the past 8 years.

No doubt budgeting is tough: for a family of 4 and a state of 12 million+. Everyone supports cutting waste, fraud, and abuse...and everyone SHOULD be for a fair share solution, but when Pennsylvania's families are facing higher college tuition costs, elimination of full day kindergarten, cuts to healthcare and more, while multi-state and national corporations are being let off the hook for any tax burden and being given bonuses because "someone" took a "no tax pledge" on the campaign trail...it makes you wonder who is responsible for the dysfunction in this family?

Marcellus Works?

2011-04-13T12:32:00.000-04:00

Now Republicans want taxpayers to foot the bill to drum up business for natural gas corporations?

There is an old expression that says "give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile." This expression basically sums up Pennsylvania's relationship with the Marcellus Shale industry.

Currently, the Commonwealth allows largely out-of-state natural gas producers to operate without a severance tax... like every other state in the union with natural gas levies (yep, Texas too).

Under the Marcellus Works plan, which the House GOP reintroduced last week, Republican leaders are asking Pennsylvanian taxpayers to foot the bill for the natural gas industry just a little more.

The 7-bill plan the House GOP is endorsing would incentivize the purchase of natural gas by pumping $47.5 million in tax dollars into tax credits, grants and loans for transit authorities, school districts and private businesses across the state to convert to natural gas for their vehicles.

Call me a capitalist, but shouldn't the market drive these kinds of conversions?

Some transportation administrators of smaller communities see flaws in the plan because they simply don't have the infrastructure in place to convert now. And natural gas fueled vehicles cost more than conventional ones, so fleets looking to make the switch have questions regarding how long it will take to recoup purchase costs.

The cost for compressed natural gas (CNG) used for natural gas vehicles varies widely. A rep from Chesapeake Energy Corp. (based in Oklahoma City, and the leading producer of natural gas here in Pennsylvania) said it goes for $1.39 a gallon in OK. However, others show it has been as high as $2.30 in PA.

But, I can see why Republicans are adamant about fueling the market here since an Inquirer article last week exposed that currently "drilling has outpaced the industry's ability to sell the gas." (PA's Natural Gas Rush, Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/3/2011)

Pennsylvania has already let the natural gas industry escape paying an extraction tax, costing the state about $173 million so far, and further reckless action on the part of drillers has caused toxic spills, explosions and tainted our drinking water. Now we're being asked to provide them a larger market in which to sell their product.

After some consideration, perhaps a more applicable expression for the Marcellus industry is that the House GOP is allowing them to "have their cake and eat it too."

Coming Soon to a State Near You!

2011-04-11T14:59:00.000-04:00

What "Right to Work" really means

Earlier this year Wisconsin, normally known for its cheese and beer, was a mainstay in the national news as ground zero for its clash between labor unions and the Republican party.

The Badger State, which has a new Republican governor and a budget deficit of $3.6 billion, had a legislative standoff. Teachers and other unionized workers slept in the Capitol's hallways for weeks, and Democratic senators fled the state to delay debate on a Gov. Scott Walker's budget proposal, which includes limiting the power of public-employee unions to negotiate contracts and work rules.

The bill, which passed by using legislative high jinks, awaits a ruling by the state Supreme Court before it can be implemented.

Several other states are getting in on the action with varying success including Ohio, Iowa, New Jersey and Florida. Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Corbett has already come out in favor of Right to Work legislation.

In anticipation of this challenge to workers rights, here is a primer on what Right to Work means.

First, Right to Work, while sounding beneficial to job seekers, does nothing to secure jobs or provide protection against undue dismissal. It allows people to gain the benefit of union negotiated arrangements without being a union member -- it essentially undermines the union.

If you compare several quality of life indicators in states with a Right to Work (like Mississippi, Florida, and Texas) with Pennsylvania, you can see our state comes out ahead consistently on measures like wages, education and health coverage.

Wages: Based off of 2009 figures, the average annual pay for Pennsylvania's estimated 900,000+ unionized workers (private and public sector) is more than $5000 higher than the average in Right to Work states.

Education: In 2009, Pennsylvania invested more in education per student than 21 of 22 Right to Work states. PA's average: just over $12,032, Right to Work average: about $9,000. This investment pays dividends: more Pennsylvania students are proficient in both math and reading then in Right to Work states.

Health care: Pennsylvania employers are more likely to offer health insurance to their workers than Right to Work states, especially small businesses with fewer than 50 employers.

· PA all employers: 63%; Right to Work all employers: 50.3%

· PA small employers: 49.4%; Right to Work small employers: 34.6%

These are the factors that individuals and young families look at when considering a move to a new state. Additionally, good wages, education and health care keep the Pennsylvania economy recovery moving in the right direction.

The people who are for job growth and against higher taxes should want Pennsylvania's wages to be higher.

It would seem to me given our current state's economic concerns, now would be an adverse time to rescind workers rights and move in the direction of lower wages, less health care and less student achievement.

Things that make you go hmmm...

2011-04-08T14:55:00.000-04:00

Pennsylvania remains the only state with a natural gas industry that doesn't levy a severance tax on drillers (you guess it even Texas does), despite recent polls indicating that 70% of Pennsylvanians support implementing such a tax on the out-of-state companies responsible most of the extraction. People have legitimate concerns over the quality of PA's drinking water, the strain on small communities' emergency responders and damage to our state's already deteriorating infrastructure.

The Commonwealth has already lost out on millions of dollars in revenue which could have helped in this year's especially tense budget debate.

As has been true for the past couple years, Marcellus Shale stories consistently pepper the news media. This week several news outlets covered Marcellus from different angles including National Public Radio. Central PA's WGAL offered a rare on-air editorial. The Philadelphia Inquirer provided a list ranking the state's 20 top drillers, which speaks volumes. I've included the top 10 from the Inquirer's list of companies and their headquarters below.

1. Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, OK

2. Talisman Energy Inc., Calgary, Alberta

3. Range Resources Corp., Fort Worth, TX

4. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., Houston, TX

5. Chevron Corp./Atlas Energy Inc., San Ramon, CA

6. Royal Dutch Shell P.L.C./East Resources Inc., the Hague, the Netherlands

7. EQT Corp., Pittsburgh, PA

8. Chief Oil & Gas L.L.C., Dallas, TX

9. Consol Energy Inc., Canonsburg, PA

10. Seneca Resources Corp., Houston, TX

The natural gas is here in Pennsylvania, these largely out-of-state (and out-of-country) companies have located here to profit from our resource. These companies simply can't go somewhere else to drill for this gas, they especially can't go someplace without a severance tax, because such a place doesn't exist. If these companies could afford to fund a gubernatorial campaign and trips to the Super Bowl, they can surely pay their fair share now.

It's worse than I thought...budget cutting, and the miseducation of the House GOP

2011-04-07T16:22:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, the House Majority Leader spoke to the Capitol media about his caucus' desire to restore some of the higher education funding slashed in this year's budget by Gov. Corbett.

Good, maybe that's because not only would thousands of college kids suffer, but many local economies and communities would be decimated if students disappeared and schools were shuttered. Incidentally, many of those communities are in republican districts. But his caucus also is endorsing the philosophy of robbing Peter to pay Paul by targeting DPW.

Also he wouldn't commit to reinstating any of the $1.1 billion cut from public education. His flip comments included that his caucus' top priority is to change the state basic ed formula so that its cuts hit Philadelphia and other urban school districts proportionally as hard as they do suburban and rural districts (Capitolwire, Turzai says House GOP backs Corbett on leasing, budget spending total, 4/5/11).

Those comments border on absurd.

After viewing the Leader's press conference, I'm left thinking that he doesn't understand budgeting, or really how to read a spreadsheet.

Under the Gov. Corbett's proposal the Leader's 2 school districts suffer a $163 cut (Pine-Richland SD) and a $166 cut (North Allegheny SD). The rest of the state should be so lucky as to sustain cuts like those.

A quick look at the data available on the Democratic Appropriations website (I checked the GOP website, and no spreadsheets were available) demonstrates that the p/pupil cut in Philadelphia is about $1400, more than double the state average ($584). Even more shocking is that 4 districts actually receive LARGER p/pupil cuts than Philadelphia. But I'm pretty sure the House GOP is NOT recommending raiding the funds for Philly to help Chester Upland manage their $2600 p/pupil cut.

There are only 2 things the Legislature could do to worsen the atrocious cuts made to public education than what the governor introduced. #1 – shift funds out of the districts that need it most, and balance the budget on the backs of the working poor. And #2 – implement a school voucher program that will do little to improve educational outcomes and will cost the Commonwealth a billion dollars.

These House GOP-backed policies are shortsighted and not only fail to address the true problem, but would intensify it.

Vouchers...here's what I've been hearing

2011-04-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

Here are some samples of what people have been telling me about school vouchers from across the Commonwealth.

According to attorneys at the ALCU of PA

Two provisions of the state constitution bar the Commonwealth from funding religious schools.

Article III, Section 15 states:

No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of the sectarian.

Article III, Section 29 states:

No appropriation should be made for charitable, educational or benevolent purposes to any person or community nor to any denomination and sectarian institution, corporation or association...

Americans for the Separation of Church and State reports

· Despite receiving public money, private schools that participate in voucher programs are not subject to all civil rights laws that public schools are, including Title IX and the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).

· Voucher payments often do not cover the entire cost of tuition or other mandatory fees for private schools.

A 2003 study concluded: "For many families, the financial burden of paying even the relatively small portion of their children's private school tuition is more than they can bear."[1] In the end, the families most likely to use a voucher are the ones who could already afford to send their kids to private schools.

· Vouchers do not provide any "savings" to public schools. A 1999 study of Cleveland's program showed public schools from which students left for private voucher schools were spread throughout the district. The reduction in students, therefore, was negligible at individual schools. Instead, the public school district lost state funding without being able to cut overall operating costs.[2]

According to school superintendents

Under the proposed bill, education institutions can "pick and choose" which students they wish to educate. Special education students and students with "at-risk" behaviors, will likely be discriminated against because this proposed bill allows schools to "opt-out" of enrolling these students if they do not offer "appropriate programs."

Scott V. Graham, Northern Potter School District

The choices offered to parents, at least with regard to non-public institutions, offer no way to determine whether or not their "choices" secure better results than their current schools. On this day, all of our third through eighth-grade student, and or high school juniors, are bubbling in answer sheets on the PSSA. Their scores will be thoroughly analyzed, disaggregated by a variety of demographic characteristics and publicly reported in numerous venues. We will be held accountable for their scores. Our non-public peers are not obligated by SB 1 to meet the demands of Chapter 4, nor will they be required to align their programs with the Commonwealth's even more rigorous graduation requirements with the Common Core standards and Keystone Exams are fully implemented.

Jay Badam, School District of Erie

All testimony is available at www.pahouse.com/PolicyCommittee

[1] Metcalf, Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program: Exploring Families' & Education Choices: Technical Report, 162 (Dec. 2003)

[2] KPMG, LLP, Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program: Final Management Study (Sept. 1999)

People disapprove of barebones budgeting, they support shared solutions

2011-03-31T15:25:00.000-04:00

We've all been there. We've seen an advertisement on tv or the computer about a product that seemed too good to be true, but we bought it anyway because it sounded great. Then you get it home and get a good look at it, it fails to meet your expectations. But it's too late, you bought it. For better or worse it's yours.

Well last fall the residents of Pennsylvania were sold a bill of goods. Candidate Corbett made promises on the campaign trail about more jobs and less taxes. And it sounded pretty good to some people. However a few weeks ago the people (all 26% who supported him and the remaining 74% of us who didn't) saw what 'Governor Corporate' actually had to offer.

During his budget address we finally heard about what we bought. And turns out a lot of Pennsylvanians didn't like what they heard. Sure the budget address opened up with some great lines about "shared sacrifice" and "must-haves" and "nice-to-haves," but Pennsylvanians don't share the same definitions of these Corbett-isms.

We're not alone in our frustration. Turns out voters everywhere are not very fond of barebones budgeting. For example:

· Gov. Chris Christie, R-NJ, experienced a 10 point drop in approval rating between December (56%) his budget address in February.

· In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich has seen the number of residents disapproving of his job performance double since January, from 22% to 46%.

· With outcry over education cuts, a near equal amount of Floridians approve (28%) and disapprove (24%) of their new Republican Gov. Rick Scott's job performance.

· Due to the labor standoff in Wisconsin last month, Gov. Scott Walker is unpopular with 51% of voters.

Back here at home, Gov. Corbett made national news following his budget address. A poll found that 78% of Pennsylvanians oppose cutting funding to local school districts and 67% dislike the idea of slashing funding in half for the state's public universities (a national record).

It's not that residents aren't willing to share in the sacrifice, or aren't willing to scale back on their "nice-to-haves." It's that Pennsylvanians genuinely believe multimillion dollar corporations with their tax breaks aren't sharing, and that their tax breaks aren't "must-haves."

Pennsylvanians have repeatedly come out in favor levying some sort of fee on the out-of-state drillers, bounding across our state forests and extracting our natural gas. Seventy percent of Pennsylvanians want to be more like Texas and Alaska and impose such a tax.

Pennsylvanians believe major corporations operating in the state shouldn't be able rent a post office box in Delaware and call it their headquarters to avoid paying their fair share, driving up the dependency on taxes levied on Pennsylvanian-owner companies. Pennsylvanians want to close the Delaware loophole... like Texas and Alaska.

Pennsylvanians don't understand why the Commonwealth is the only state in the nation that doesn't tax smokeless tobacco, when major producing states do. Pennsylvanians want to be more like Texas and Alaska and have a fair tax on all tobacco products.

The Commonwealth has solutions available and Pennsylvanians support them. Pennsylvanians can manage the scalpel approach to budget cuts, but they won't buy whatever it is the governor claims to be selling.

Liquor privatization, fact or fantasy....

2011-03-29T16:49:00.000-04:00

The HDPC has been holding public hearings across the state on 2011's hot topics including liquor privatization. Here is some of what I've been hearing so far:

The Math

Privateers have speculated that the sale of 850 licenses would garner $2 billion or more. To generate that much, each would have to be sold for $2.3 million. No other state has experienced that windfall.

· An audit in Virginia found that 1000 licenses would need to be sold to raise $200 million, an average of $200,000 per license

· In West Virginia, 89 of 165 stores licenses sold for less than $200,000 in 2010, an additional 45 sold for less than $100,000

Pennsylvania's Wine and Spirits stores generate more than $500 million for the state annually.

Consumer Choice

Currently there is a wine and spirits store in each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. West Virginia had a similar system, however when it was privatized 5 rural counties lost their liquor stores. Several others have licenses held by convenience or drug stores, which offer little shelf space for liquor and wine selections, thereby limiting consumer choice.

Jobs

Not only will the roughly 4500 currently state store employees lose their jobs, but experience in other states demonstrates that licenses go to existing stores, which choose to use existing staff to stock their shelves.

Public Safety/Social Costs

Independent research by the Marin Institute has found that "increased availability of alcohol is generally associated with increases in consumption."[1]

Increased consumption due to privatization has proven harmful and costly, as higher instances of violence, burglary, vandalism, drunk driving, reckless sex, teen pregnancy and addiction occur.

These costs have a number associated: $3.6 billion annually, including increased medical costs, criminal justice and public program costs, property damage, lost work hours and quality of life costs.

[1] Privatization of State-Run Alcohol Sales and Expensive Solution, Marin Institute May 2010

Does the Commonwealth have too many ABCDs...

2011-03-25T08:42:00.000-04:00

a few more can't hurt....

Last week the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee held a hearing on what they call the ABCDs of state government. Many people contend that Pennsylvania has too many Agencies, Boards, Commissions and Departments. But why stop there, let's add committees and task forces and councils for good measure.

There is probably an argument to be made here. However I think the method that Gov. Corbett is using to attack the issue is amiss. The Scranton Times reported last week, that the governor thinks the best way to scale down the hundreds of groups appointed to consider everything from physical fitness and sports[1] to Asian American affairs[2], is to create another task force to review existing commissions, boards, etc.

Seriously, create another group to determine if Pennsylvania has too many groups already?

This is just the beginning, Leslie Gromis Baker, an advisor to the governor, spoke at a forum in January about Corbett's intention to create several commissions. One would look at the privatization of state assets, another transportation funding, and one to look at issues dealing with Marcellus Shale.

The governor isn't alone in his methodology. At the same Senate hearing, Nate Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation advocated that the governor create a temporary commission of business leaders and others to make a plan for streamlining state government, and that this is the key to economic growth and prosperity.

Some may argue that creating a commission is a good way to look like progress is being made without actually doing anything. Further, there are rarely mandates to implement any of the suggestions made by the commission. Or the reverse, a commission can make recommendations and take the blame if those recommendations turn out to be unsuccessful or unpopular.

More than likely this is just another attempt by the administration (similar to their budget ploy) to convince the public that they are doing one thing (eliminating waste, fraud & abuse) while executing another agenda (decimating basic education, public higher education & rewarding corporate contributors with tax breaks).

No doubt, this ABCD consolidation has little to do with streamlining government, but more to do with cutting services for working Pennsylvanians while exonerating corporations from any social responsibility.

A listing of some of the state's ABCDs can be found here.

[1] Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports

[2] Governor's Advisory Commission on Asian American Affairs

Graduation rates in Pa. versus the U.S. average (2007)

2011-03-23T12:12:00.001-04:00

Higher education tuition hike will lead to increased college debt...

2011-03-23T11:57:00.001-04:00

...and PHEAA grants were cut by over $7 million in the governor's budget proposal

Want to earn some college credit while in high school...

...dual enrollment funding eliminated

Maybe two years at a community college...

...community college funding cut 10%

Corbett should treat higher education the same way he treats other industries

2011-03-22T17:15:00.000-04:00

Among his budget "must-haves" Gov. Corbett found room for tax breaks and hand outs to big business, but can't find adequate and fair funding for higher education, which in my opinion should be considered one of the state's most favorable industries.

Pennsylvania has a higher education infrastructure that is the envy of other states, would take billions of dollars to replicate, and generates billions in economic impact annually.

Beyond producing the qualified workforce of the next generation (which in turn leads companies to locate here), it promotes tourism ($83 million worth of visits from moms, dads & siblings and events like alumni weekends), and it drives the economies of towns surrounding the schools as a major employer, not just in on-campus jobs, but the small businesses catering to the needs of the students and faculty in towns surrounding universities.

Corbett's massive cut is an embarrassment to all Pennsylvanians and effect the state system, state-related and even in independent colleges and universities. The Associated Press reported that the funding slash is the considered the highest proposed cut to state-supported colleges and universities is the nation this year.

Tuition increases can only make up for so much. Increases at the SSHE schools have been in the neighborhood of 4% for the last decade, but cuts of the magnitude Corbett is proposing would increase that tuition hike to 20%.

Millersville and other schools have indicated that the reduction of this magnitude will force them to offer fewer courses, which would prohibit students from completing college in four years, or even in five or six years.

Today 13 of 14 universities in Pennsylvania's state system held student rallies protesting the governor's proposed 50% cut to higher education funding. I welcome those who are adding their voices to the list of outraged citizens across the state.

Cuts this drastic are pennywise and pound foolish. When the economy does improve, and economic indicators point in that direction, Pennsylvania won't be able to offer the highly-trained workforce that we've been working toward, or conversely, graduates will be saddled with unwieldy college debt.

I invite students and anyone opposed to the cuts to stay informed about the higher education budget through the "Pennsylvania College Coalition" page on both Facebook: www.facebook.com/PACollegeCoalition; and Twitter: http://twitter.com/PA4Colleges.

I've been exploring the notion of higher ed as an industry for years with the Democratic Policy Committee, even before the proposed cuts, and I am convinced that it is an industry worth investing, and that Corbett’s cuts would be detrimental to the Commonwealth’s economy.

Pouring salt in the wound.

2011-03-16T20:19:00.001-04:00

Less than a month after adultBasic was terminated funding that would have gone to help pay for the health care program for working Pennsylvanians, instead was diverted to another fund, one run by the governor to dole out loans to business friends.

The governor and Republican legislators who support his budget call it good for job creation, those of us who don’t, call it good news for their friends in big business.

Let me explain. For the past decade adultBasic was partially funded through a portion of the Commonwealth’s tobacco settlement monies, which the state receives as an annual payment from the big tobacco companies. At the time, the Legislature decided that most of those funds should be directed to health-related programs including smoking cessation and health insurance. From 2005 through Feb. 28^th of this year, the state’s Blues health care systems were partners in this program as part of their charitable mission (and since they have a $5.5 billion surplus).

The yearly tobacco payment is an estimated $350 million. This year $220 million of that has been earmarked for the Liberty Loan Fund, which by the way combines funds from 5 other pre-existing loan programs, all controlled by the governor and maybe his supreme decider, DCED Secretary Walker.

The governor and those who support his proposal will argue that a portion of the tobacco settlement funds are still going to health care… yeah less than 25%.

Some argue this diversion may not even be legal, as the Tobacco Settlement Act of 2001 mandated that payments be distributed in specific portions:

· 8 percent deposited to an endowment account for the future

· 30 percent for adultBasic and Medicaid for workers with disabilities

· 18 percent for health research

· 13 percent for home- and community-based services for the elderly

· 12 percent for tobacco prevention and cessation programs

· 10 percent to reimburse hospitals for uncompensated care

· 8 percent to expand the PACENET prescription drug program

· 1 percent for cancer research

Nowhere in the list is a percentage for the “Liberty Loan Fund.”

In the past there have been diversions of tobacco monies to cover budget obligations, but not to create a slush fund for the governor’s friends in the business community and not at the expense of 42,000 working Pennsylvanians. This is reprehensible for people who lost their affordable health care this month, and is another example of a gimmick in the budget that was supposedly gimmick-free.

Here is one more glimpse at the governor’s idea of a “must have” Liberty slush fund, versus a “nice-to-have” health care for working Pennsylvanians.

Corbett appoints a supreme decider

2011-03-16T20:15:00.000-04:00

Who is overseeing DEP... or other state agencies tasked with protecting Pennsylvania's interests?

On January 18^th along with being sworn-in as governor, Tom Corbett also found the time between speeches and his $3.5 million in inaugural festivities, to nominate Michael Krancer to head the state Department of Environmental Protection. This is a pretty significant appointment seeing as this Krancer is tasked with overseeing the health of Pennsylvania's environment to include its water, air and energy. It is especially important given the mounting role Marcellus Shale drilling is playing in all three of these areas.

But Corbett must not think Krancer is up to the challenge and must not have much confidence in the other people he nominated to head state agencies, because tucked away in his budget proposal is a provision for the Department of Community and Economic Development chief, C. Alan Walker, to be able to "expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where creation of jobs may be impacted."

Some environmental groups have expressed their concern because of the power the clause gives Walker over energy permits. I echo their concerns, but not merely for the enormous red flags it raises in regards to possible conflicts of interest (Walker is owner or has financial interests in 13 companies, many related to energy production; and is a longtime Corbett campaign contributor, $184K in the past 7 years).

No, I'm more concerned that this clause cedes unprecedented power to one man over many, many state agencies, with many, many missions. Some of which Secretary Walker may have no familiarity with.

Here's a quick look at a few of the state agencies tasked with doing some kind of permit issuing, which under the loose definitions adopted by the administration could relate to job creation:

Department of Labor and Industry

Department of General Services

Department of Transportation

Department of Public Welfare

Department of Health

Just these 5 agencies equal nearly $12 billion of the state's total proposed $27.3 billion spending. Obviously these agencies are responsible for much more than strictly granting permits, but why tie their leaders’ hands at all?

And why should the secretary of DCED have so much say in permitting issues, aren’t those tasked with overseeing those agencies capable and better able to determine the merits of permit seekers in their given field, even if it relates to some type of job creation?

Regardless of who holds the position of DCED secretary, this kind of unparalleled control makes little sense. Michael Krancer was selected to head DEP, because he has the credentials to run that agency, ceding any of those responsibilities to another cabinet secretary is not only unheard of but disconcerting to many environmental advocates and should be to the public as well.

If you wannabe like Texas, you gotta (en)act like Taxes

2011-03-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

Call me a proud Pennsylvanian, but I've never been a huge fan of New Jersey, even with such esteemed citizens as Boardwalk Empire real life criminal kingpin Nucky Johnson or Snookie of Jersey Shore fame... my personal favorite: current governor célèbre, Chris Christie.

During the campaign and while planning his budget, Gov. Corbett first tried to emulate the Garden State, but when he did his research it turns out Gov. Christie's budget experiment has largely failed to produce jobs, lower taxes or keep its citizens safe. So now the Commonwealth's governor has focused his 'sights' on another state, a rather dramatic shift to...Texas.

Texas?

Despite being the home of great Americans: Ken Lay and the deceptive energy giant Enron, Anna Nicole Smith and her inflated personality, and criminal outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, Texas does have a few things worth embracing.

Texas has a Natural Gas Production tax... you know comparable to what a majority of Pennsylvanians support on Marcellus Shale, but Gov. Corbett and his Republican majorities in the state House and Senate refuse to endorse.

Along with its extraction tax, there is a local property tax on the owner of a property’s mineral rights, which means if a property has oil, gas, or another mineral under the ground, those commodities are assessed for property tax purposes. Not so in Pennsylvania.

There's more: unlike the Keystone State, Texas levies a tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco. Maybe they're onto something since cigar smoking multiplies the chances of dying from a range of cancers as well as leading to other health problems.

Hey Governor, how about this: if you really want to realign your priorities and help the working people with your proposed budget, why don’t you lower our personal income tax? Texas doesn't collect a personal income tax. Sure you may not be able to cut taxes to your corporate friends as easily, but Pennsylvania's working families sure would appreciate the boost.

And in case the examples so far aren't enough to have you packing your bags for the Lone Star State, Texas also has combined reporting which closes the "Delaware loophole." So all those big businesses that escape paying their fair share in Pennsylvania, do pay what they ought to in Texas.

Texas isn’t perfect, they have a huge budget deficit too, but at least their leaders had the sense to tax the things that people believe ought to be taxed (i.e.-Big Gas, Big Oil, Big Tobacco).

If you wannabe like Texas, you gotta (en)act like Taxes.

All education cuts are not created equal

2011-03-11T13:34:00.000-05:00

Per/pupil funding cuts vary by up to 1800%

By now you've probably heard about the draconian cuts to education in Gov. Corbett's proposed spending plan.

While basic education is tragically reduced by nearly $1 billion overall, the reductions in spending per student are even more appalling. Some neighboring school districts have dramatic differences in the amount their allocation per student would drop under the Corbett plan. Sometimes the difference in reduction between districts can vary by hundreds of dollars.

Where you live really does make a difference...

Here is a look at a few of the striking discrepancies:

School District	REDUCTION in BEF* per student
Lancaster	$418
Conestoga Valley	$57

Pittsburgh	$550
Fox Chapel Area	$55

Reading	$680
Wyomissing Area	$39

Bristol Borough	$474
New Hope-Solebury	$77

Harrisburg City	$491
Derry Township	$45

York City	$590
York Suburban	$32

This is all very surprising, seeing as the Department of Education's website indicates that school districts actually got increases... And I was told there were no gimmicks in this budget, ha! That's as accurate as saying it is tax free.

*basic education funding

Sorting the 'must-haves' from the 'nice-to-haves'

2011-03-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

In his 2011/12 budget address Tom Corbett broke his promise of no tax increases. Sure, he didn't raise them at the state level and doesn't plan to implement a drilling tax despite being a fair and incredibly popular idea among the state's residents. Nope, the governor decided to pass the burden of slashing and taxing to local governments. So your local school, county and municipal taxes WILL rise dramatically instead.

While he decimated funding for education and social services, he made sure to include plenty of tax credits and rewards for big business.

Here are a few examples:

· Resuming the phase-out of the capital stock and franchise tax – which had been put on hold

· Adopting federal bonus depreciation rules that reduce revenue by $200 million to $400 million

· An increase in other business tax credits totaling over $200 million

These and no mention of implementing a drilling tax on the multimillion dollar energy companies currently tapping the state's natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale region, and closing a loophole which allows out of state corporations that do business here to purchase a post office box in Delaware and pretend that is where their profits are headquartered.

In his speech the governor said his budget "sorts the must-haves from the nice-to-haves." I agree with this kind of distinction. What I don't agree with is that education, human services, and protecting our environment are "nice-to-have," but the handouts for colossal corporations qualify as "must-haves."

Corbett embraces a failed budgetary experiment

2011-03-08T15:38:00.000-05:00

Today, Gov. Corbett presented his first budget proposal. Even with nearly no advanced details of the plan, the actual content of his address came as no surprise. The speech itself was long on ideological rhetoric and lean on the details of the cuts he actually plans on inflicting.

Corbett's budget is packed with pain for Pennsylvania's working families and seniors on fixed incomes, and rife with rewards for big business.

It will take time to determine the full extent of the negative impact his spending plan will have on the Commonwealth's communities. But one thing is clear many municipalities, counties and school districts will be burdened with slashing services and hiking taxes.

All we have to do to see the results of this tax shift experiment is look across the Delaware River to neighboring New Jersey.

In 2010, New Jersey guv and superstar among conservative pundits, Chris Christie introduced a budget with colossal cuts that had devastating effects on:

· Local taxpayers: the average local tax hike statewide was 7%, 100 municipalities saw double digit increases;

· School districts: $820 million cut forced larger class sizes, reversing a decades-old national trend of declining sizes;

· Job seekers: in 2010 NJ had the lowest job growth of all 50 states

· Public safety: cuts to municipalities have caused police and fire fighter layoffs, Camden's aggravated assaults with a gun are up 259% over last year

The budget plan presented today promises much of the same for the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania's future under this proposal will include: higher property taxes, more people in our emergency rooms for treatment, higher college debt, more personal bankruptcies due to medical expenses, bigger class sizes in our schools, and a shrunken middle class.

The governor has made his priorities clear the previous two months by allowing adultBasic to end and approving a perk for corporate cronies with $200 million bonus depreciation. These same misguided priorities are evident in the budget he delivered today.

I don't believe that Pennsylvania's seniors, taxpaying families and the Commonwealth's kids should bear the brunt of an unreasonable and likely, failed budget.

Another bad Republican idea being fast tracked through the state House

2011-03-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

…is there an echo in here?

In the past week, I've received emails from constituents asking me to oppose H.R. 89, which could threaten the meaningful changes to the state's Dog Law approved in 2008.

It bears repeating that, prior to passing the law, Pennsylvania had a dreadful reputation of being the puppy mill capital of the east. As a Lancaster Countian, it was disappointing to have my home featured as the subject of an Oprah investigation. Also worth mentioning is that many legitimate dog breeders in Lancaster County were already meeting or exceeding the standards in the 2008 law and were hurt more by the negative press caused by the abusers in the industry than they are by the new law.

While the premise of this resolution claims to be innocuous and not an attempt to kill the 2008 law (after all the law was approved with overwhelming support just 2 ½ years ago), it couldn't be worse timing. With the Commonwealth's current fiscal situation, is a study of the effects of this law really where we want to direct our state’s limited resources?

Additionally, the PA Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is likely to see a drop in their state subsidy for tourism promotion again this year, will have more bad press to contend with and lost business when groups didn't want to patronize our properties for conventions and other gatherings…again.

It's also perplexing that the Republican House majority is in a rush to consider this resolution just days after being introduced and hours before their Governor is likely to deliver the news that there is no money left to spend on things like educating our children or promoting tourism in our state.

What's the rush? Portions of the 2008 law haven't even been implemented yet. What would Oprah say?

This is evidence of a larger issue affecting the state House this session. Some bills are fast tracked, with little to no time to garner any substantive feedback; and when the minority party attempts to improve a bill, with you know an amendment or two, they are found to be not germane.

I’m a big fan of public discourse and airing out an issue, that’s why the Policy Committee is dedicating time to hear from residents across the state on issues that affect real Pennsylvanians. Fast-tracking bills for the sake of a small constituency, especially when that constituency is held in disregard around the country as animal abusers just doesn't make sense.

More perspective on adultBasic and health care in PA from today's HDPC hearing:

2011-03-03T13:47:00.000-05:00

Testimony from the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of PA:

It makes no economic sense to end adultBasic. At a recent event, Mr. Bob Rundle, the CEO of Lutheran Social Services for South-Central Pennsylvania, noted the economic cost of not continuing adultBasic through the end of the fiscal year. He calculated it would cost $52 million to continue adultBasic for all 42,000 people through June, which translates into roughly $1,250 per participant. Based on 2008 data, he said, it costs $1,265 per emergency room visit. He said, “We’re telling people to leave a health insurance program that gives them both care as well as the comfort they need to move forward and, in return, go to our community hospitals, go to our emergency rooms and drive our costs up."

Testimony from SEIU Healthcare PA:

According to a Harvard Medical School study half of all bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical bills.

Testimony from United Methodist Advocacy in PA:

We believe this is a moral obligation. To not do everything possible to find a way to continue insurance for those 42000 persons, and to help those on the waiting list borders on immoral.

The governor can’t find money for adultBasic, but he found over $200 million for big business

2011-02-28T17:04:00.000-05:00

Distributing a press release toward the end of the week is a great way to bury a story that you don't really want to be told. Well last Thursday, expert communicators working for the Corbett administration opted to release a new policy on how corporations can include bonus depreciation in determining their tax liability.

I know, I know, bonus depreciation can make your eyes glaze over, but what I'm talking about here is a policy that amounts to a $200 million giveaway to big businesses. Bonus depreciation is basically an accounting method that allows businesses an additional deduction for the cost of equipment purchases when the item is initially purchased.

Putting this in context, the state is looking at a $4 billion budget deficit and adultBasic health coverage for 42,000 people expires at midnight. Despite these issues, an internal decision was made by the Corbett administration to give away $200 million to corporations!

The most appalling part is that the biggest beneficiaries of this new policy are those corporations already taking advantage of a monster truck-sized loophole in the Tax Reform Code, often referred to as the Delaware Loophole. A quick reminder that this loophole is where corporations transfer profits to out of state subsidiaries and avoid paying taxes to Pennsylvania, costing our state millions of dollars in revenue, forcing small Pennsylvania businesses to pay more than their fair share.

This quiet action by the new administration is just another indicator of Gov. Corbett's priorities this year.

adultBasic: How many people in your county will lose coverage?

2011-02-23T14:23:00.005-05:00

AdultBasic: A rural crisis?

2011-02-22T12:54:00.000-05:00

In less than a week 41,000 working Pennsylvanians will lose their health care coverage. Coverage that is low cost, but keeps those enrolled out of high cost emergency rooms for treatment because of its preventative care and affordable doctors visits. AdultBasic keeps costs down for all of us.

We knew this crisis was coming, not just for the 41,000, but for the estimated 500,000 residents on the waiting list who will never be able to enroll.

At the start of this year, one of the first acts of those in power was to blame the previous administration for not leaving them with a government that would not run itself for the next four years. Gov. Corbett and the 142 Republican lawmakers that control the House and Senate, claim they knew the crisis was coming yet, with one week remaining not one viable* plan has emerged from that side. And not one of the Democratic plans has been embraced or fully considered by those in control.

After reviewing the numbers, the fact that the majority has remained largely silent surprised me. Turns out a greater percentage of those in rural counties (aka republican ones) are effected more than urban ones (aka Philadelphia and the like).

In counties with fewer than 50,000 residents (23 according to 2008 Census Bureau numbers) an average of nearly .50% are enrolled in adultBasic and 4.9% are on the waiting list, compared to counties with over 250,000 residents (there are 14, mainly in the east) where just .26% are enrolled and 3.5% are on the waiting list.

In fact the three counties with the highest percentage of their population on the rolls are: Bedford (.81%), Somerset (.78%) and Potter (.77%); those with the lowest percentage: Dauphin, Lebanon, and Chester (all .14%).

While the Republican-led legislature and administration has failed to cultivate a timely solution to adultBasic's expiration, not all the blame rests with them. The Blues haven't offered any of their $5.6 billion surplus to subsidize the program (despite being a nonprofit with a charitable obligation), which cost them $164 million last year.

If I were the Blues, I would be scared that Gov. Corbett's reluctance to ask me for a measly 3% of my surplus to carry out my charitable mission means he has bigger plans for a larger chunk of my surplus when budget time rolls around.

This is perhaps just the first crisis of 2011. I imagine there will be many more given that the governor's budget address is just weeks away. So far this session, we've seen that the Republicans can act rapidly when they're motivated to do something like attempt to pass H.B. 42, which would ban a key provision of the federal Affordable Care Act, effectively killing the ability of a person with a pre-existing condition from getting insurance coverage. I hope they are motivated to act quickly for the people on adultBasic.