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State Politics
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has announced a major assault on the food stamp program that feeds 1.8 million Pennsylvanians, including 439,245 in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare announced that on May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets will be barred from receiving food stamps. People over 60 would have a $3,250 cap.
As the Inquirer points out in a detailed look, the move to cut food stamps is way out of line with what other states are doing: “Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess — an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states.”
The trend during the Great Recession, with millions falling into poverty, has been to remove such barriers to assistance. Gov. Ed Rendell eliminated the state's asset test in 2008. Pennsylvania now joins 11 states with asset tests — including Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and South Dakota.
A bipartisan group of Pennsylvania legislators wants to give the owners of private and corporate jets a $10 million to $14 million subsidy, according to a new report by the left-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC). House Bill 100, according to the report that you can read right here, would exempt the sale of private aircraft from the state sales and use tax.
“If you buy a car, a truck, a boat or any other vehicle in Pennsylvania, you pay sales tax,” according to PBPC. “But if you are one of the few in the market for a Learjet or a Gulfstream aircraft, you would get a pass on paying that.”
Seven Republicans who want to take on Democratic Senator Bob Casey faced off at a debate at the Pennsylvania Society, the annual confab that brings the state's major political and economic power brokers to New York for schmoozing, cocktails and a really fancy banquet dinner. This event has been in New York for a century, and has been criticized for not bringing the big-spending to, say, Scranton, Philadelphia, Erie or Pittsburgh and for its general lobbyist-industrial complex decadence.
A big new industry-backed study landed on the front page of today's Inquirer: “Industry study touts large economic impact of shale-gas drilling.”
But this report, like other industry-backed reports, failed to take into account the environmental impact of fracking — which is, you know, the very issue that makes natural gas drilling is so damn controversial in the first place.
Why? John Larson, vice president of IHS Global Insight and and study's lead author, told the Inquirer that pollution is “not in our area of expertise."
Well that's convenient. The natural gas industry has spent loads of money to buy our state's political process (former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, who rejected a severance tax on the industry until his last minute in office; and current Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who's been fighting one since). And they've spent heavily on advertising too: all to convince the public that fracking is a “jobs” issue and not an “environmental” issue.
Here's something that's really important that you probably don't understand (I sure didn't): redistricting in Pennsylvania.
State Rep. Babette Josephs (D-Phila) is accusing right-wing State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) and Republican Majority Leader Mike Turzai of "push[ing] through a Congressional map that the public will have little to no time to examine or provide input on how it will affect their communities. This is not democracy. It is dictatorship."
Indeed, the redistricting bill, which Metcalfe announced they would vote on next week, has basically no content: no maps, no details. Just sentences like "The First District is composed of a portion of this Commonwealth."
So what is going on?
Montgomery County Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf has announced that he will seek the Republican nomination for president. Yes, of the United States of America. He joins a few dozen other randoms, alongside the dozen “serious” candidates (44 candidates total!) that round out a Republican field that is already mighty difficult to take seriously.
Though Greenleaf, who has zero name recognition outside the state, acknowledges that he has absolutely no chance of becoming the Republican nominee, he seems to betray — nay, broadcast — an equally narcissistic ambition. Something is missing from the current debate, according to his statement, that only he, a humble public servant, can add:
“Seeking the office of the President isn’t Greenleaf’s goal. Greenleaf seeks to add to the debate in New Hampshire and stimulate a real and robust discussion on eliminating our national debt and making it unconstitutional for future Presidents and Congresses to pass unbalanced budgets in the future.”
So where, exactly, does Mr. Greenleaf get off? Here’s the curious thing: according to Terry Madonna, Director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College and a ubiquitous commenter on state politics, Greenleaf has never been much of a showboat.
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Senate passed school vouchers legislation that would give public funds to poor students at underperforming schools to attend private schools, including religious institutions. The legislation has been a priority for Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, and received support from some Democrats, notably Philadelphia Democratic Sen. Anthony Williams. But the teachers' union, public education advocates, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately criticized the legislation, which will now be taken up by the House.
“Taxpayers see school vouchers for what they are — an expensive new entitlement program that takes money from the poorest public schools and puts it into the pockets of private and religious schools that are not accountable financially or academically to taxpayers,” according to a statement from Jerry T. Jordan, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. "Meanwhile, public schools with inadequate funding are left with even fewer resources than before to provide the education that disadvantaged children need to lift them out of poverty."
Indeed, Gov. Corbett presided over a nearly billion-dollar cut to public schools this summer, and his school vouchers legislation would use an increasingly limited pot of public school monies to send students to private schools. And there is no guarantee that any given private school will admit a given student. Unlike public schools, they can turn down whomever they choose, including because of a student’s religion or sexual orientation — or just because of weak academic performance, which will be the case with many lower-income students.
In response to articles in the Philadelphia City Paper and Salon, the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has launched an online ad campaign demanding that Rep. Daryl Metcalfe and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai return public funds given to the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC), “an extreme right-wing organization funded by shady conservative third parties, including the infamously far-right Koch brothers. They are dedicated to giving Big Business a direct role in crafting legislation that will benefit themselves, then urging state legislators to pass those exact bills.”
The ad links to this petition.
The progressive activist group Keystone Progress today released a report showing that state legislation to oppose healthcare reform and support privatization was copied from model legislation developed behind closed doors with major corporate donors at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Rep. Matthew Baker's legislation opposing "Obamacare" was based on an ALEC model and praised in an ALEC press release--even though the organization claims it does no lobbying (Common Cause strenuously disagrees):
“The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- the nation's largest nonpartisan individual membership association of state legislators -- congratulates Pennsylvania State Representatives Matthew Baker and Curt Schroder for filing House Bills 2053 and 2179, which protect the right of individuals to make their own health care choices...Pennsylvania joins 31 other states where legislators have introduced, or will introduce, legislation modeled after ALEC's Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act. Under the legislation, any state attempt to require an individual to purchase health insurance -- or forbid an individual from purchasing services outside of the required health care system -- would be rendered unconstitutional.”
Rep. Seth Grove introduced the ALEC model "Council on Efficient Government Act" that would encourage privatization of government services.
Citizen activists and journalists have just begun to compare state legislation to ALEC models. ProPublica has a how-to guide for anyone interested in doing some digging on their own.
Last week, City Paper disclosed that State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe and other conservatives received taxpayer funding to participate in and travel to American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meetings. I further explored the matter in a separate article over at Salon.
The controversial Chelten Plaza development plan in Germantown — which would erect a Save-A-Lot and Dollar Tree where a Fresh Grocer once stood — may get an additional $1 million in state funding.
The Rendell administration already awarded $3 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) funds for the project, which is set to be located at Chelten and Pulaski avenues, in 2010. This money will likely be dispersed beginning this summer. Now, City Paper has found that Gov. Tom Corbett's office is considering a request from the project's developer, Pat Burns (of Pulaski Partners), for another $1 million in RACP funds.
Corbett spokesman Eric Shirk says that the extra $1 million was already approved by the Rendell administration in late 2010 — but a contract was never executed — so Corbett's office is currently reviewing it. He adds that the administration is considering all RACP projects on a "case-by-case basis," and can't say when a final decision will be made.
The news that the proposed Chelten Plaza project may get even more public dollars shocked some community members. "I am appalled," says Yvonne Haskins, an attorney for the West Central Germantown Neighbors and other local groups. "In all my years in Philadelphia, I have never experienced such disregard for what the community wants."
Critics of the project say that the developer blindsided the community, and that another dollar store is unnecessary in a neighborhood that has more than 70 low-end stores.
Carly Spross, a spokeswoman for Fresh Grocer (which Burns owns), says the additional $1 million would likely go toward better design, landscaping and other improvements that have been advocated for by Germantown Community Connection, another local group that has butt heads with the West Central Germantown Neighbors over how to best deal with the proposal.
Look for more on the Chelten Plaza project in City Paper this week.
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