No comments

Speaker Cutler’s Attack on the Principles of the Founding Fathers

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Policy reports

The State Government Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives plans to take up two proposed constitutional amendments proposed by Speaker Cutler that are a direct and serious attack on the Pennsylvania Constitution and the entire framework of government designed by the founders of our country. Indeed, it is hard to think of any constitutional proposal that so directly and radically breaks with the wisdom of those who created the Constitution of the United States and whose work inspired the constitutions of our fifty states. While the constitution of every state is somewhat unique, every one of them enshrines the principle of the separation of power and the checks and balances in the institutions of government they create. Speaker Cutler’s amendments directly attack those principles. The separation of powers doctrine requires that each branch of government—in PA the governor, the General Assembly, and the courts—be delegated one of the three… Continue reading

No comments

In Pennsylvania Schools, The Kids Who Need the Most Get the Least

  By K-12 Education in PA, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts

On Friday, a trial will begin in Commonwealth Court to determine whether Pennsylvania is meeting its constitutional responsibility to give every student an adequate and equitable education.   By the standards the state of Pennsylvania sets for itself, it does not. Only 16% of school districts provide an adequate level of funding. And our analysis of the distribution of school funding relative to the share of students who are living in poverty or who are Black or Hispanic reveals inequities that are striking, immoral, and unconstitutional.  The benchmark we use to identify the level of funding in each district necessary to provide an adequate education is the 2007 costing-out study, as updated in 2020 by Penn State education professor Matthew Kelley. As required by Act 114, the costing-out study aimed to “arrive at a determination of the basic cost per pupil to provide an education that will permit a student to meet the state’s academic standards.”  Three times in the last ten years, a substantial bipartisan majority… Continue reading

No comments

On the PA School Funding Lawsuit: Don’t Change the Subject

  By Health Care For America Now, K-12 Education in PA, Published Op-Eds

Originally published in the PA Capital-Star, August 11, 2021 In September, a group of students and school districts will make a case in state court that Pennsylvania is not meeting its constitutional responsibility to give every student an adequate and equitable education. The conservative Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg think-tank, has called the funding lawsuit misguided. But its analysis doesn’t address the critical question of the gap between what schools spend and what they should spend according to adequacy standards written into state law. Instead, it changes the subject and presents data about other questions, tangentially related to the fundamental question at hand. The lawsuit is not about how much money is spent per student in Pennsylvania on average because a high level of spending could, and does, hide vast disparities between school districts. Those disparities arise because the bulk of school funding comes from local sources. Wealthy districts raise far… Continue reading

No comments

What the Infrastructure Bill Does for Pennsylvania

  By Infrastructure, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania

Under the formulas contained in the bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will bring $17.8 billion in new spending to Pennsylvania or over $1,400 for each resident of the state. (The state will be able to apply for additional funds as well that could bring the total of spending in Pennsylvania up to $50 billion.) Funds will be allocated roughly as follows: Roads and bridges. Based on the formula alone, Pennsylvania will receive $11.3 billion for federal-aid apportioned highway programs and $1.6 billion for bridge replacement and repairs. Pennsylvania can also compete for funds under the $12.5-billion Bridge Investment Program for economically significant bridges as well as for the $16 billion dedicated for major projects that will deliver substantial economic benefits to communities. These funds are critical. Our state has 3,353 bridges and more than 7,540 miles of highway in poor condition. Since 2011, commute times have increased by… Continue reading

No comments

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: A Major Step Forward

  By Environment, Federal Budget, Infrastructure, Statements

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: A Major Step Forward Statement from PA Budget and Policy Center, Keystone Research Center, and 99% PA Campaign In passing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act last night, the House of Representatives advanced the first of two parts of President Biden’s investment agenda. The over $1 billion infrastructure bill will generate the largest expenditure on the physical infrastructure of our country in decades. It will make huge new investments in roads and bridges, railroads and public transit, clean drinking water, high-speed internet, and repairing the damage to land and water from extractive industries. These and other investments will reduce costs for businesses and consumers, make our economy more competitive, and together with the second part of the Build Back Better plan, create an average of 1.5 million good new jobs per year, many of which will be unionized. It takes time to enact major… Continue reading

No comments

What to Expect When You’re Expecting New Districts

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Policy reports, Redistricting

Sometime in the next ninety days—and perhaps much sooner—we expect to see the Legislative Redistricting Commission (LRC) release its first draft of a plan for the redistricting of Pennsylvania’s state House and Senate districts. This policy brief aims to give Pennsylvania’s citizens, community leaders, media, and advocates some idea of what to expect from the forthcoming LRC plan. To state our conclusion as succinctly as possible: we expect the LRC to give us fair, nonpartisan legislative districts for the first time in at least two decades. Chairman Mark Nordenberg is leading the effort to undo the effects of twenty years of Republican gerrymandering and create districts that recognize demographic changes over the last decade. As a result, fairly drawn districts lines will look very different than current ones. Click here to print or read full-screen.  Continue reading

No comments

The “Billionaire Tax”: What It Is and Why We Need It

  By Billionaire tax, Federal Taxes, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation, Uncategorized, US

UPDATE: Senator Ron Wyden has released his “Billionaires Income Tax” legislation—read the language of the bill here:  https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Billionaires%20Income%20Tax.pdf. As negotiations between President Biden and House and Senate members over the Build Back Better plan have developed in the last few weeks, a new tax proposal to fund the close to $2 billion investment in health care, child care, paid family leave, climate change, and other programs, has come to the fore: a “billionaire tax.” While Senator Wyden and others have been discussing this proposal for some time, it is a relatively unknown concept and would be a new form of federal taxation. Here we briefly explain what it is and why it is an excellent idea. The new proposal is to tax the increased wealth of the richest Americans each year. The tax would apply immediately to tradeable assets—stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and derivatives—where the value of the asset is… Continue reading

No comments

MEMO: The Corporate Profits Minimum Tax and Why We Need It

  By Corporate Taxes, Federal Taxes, Taxation, US

Democrats are set to introduce a 15% corporate minimum tax as a funding mechanism for the Build Back Better plan. The Corporate Profits Minimum Tax legislation would ensure that roughly 200 corporations that report more than $1 billion in profits to shareholders pay at least a 15% tax rate on those gigantic profits. It would stop giant, profitable corporations, such as Amazon, Bank of America, FedEx, General Motors, Netflix, and Nike, from escaping all federal taxes. These corporations and others like them make huge profits that they report to their stockholders in filings required by the federal government. But they take advantage of multiple tax loopholes to avoid paying federal corporate income taxes. This new tax would raise roughly $200 billion to $300 billion dollars over ten years. These revenues would enable the federal government to make new investments in helping families with children, health care, child care, elder care,… Continue reading

No comments

Build Back Better: A Transformative Plan for 21st-Century America

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Education, Energy, Infrastructure, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements, Taxation, US

President Biden’s Build Back Better framework is an unprecedented and transformative plan to better the lives of all Americans—Black, brown, and white; those with low, moderate, or high incomes; the youngest children and the oldest seniors. It will help families care for children while making quality pre-K available to all 3- and 4-year-olds. It will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs, many in unionized trades and clean manufacturing while drastically cutting greenhouse gases and reducing energy costs for every household. It will reduce the cost of health care and housing for millions. And it will make college education more affordable, boosting the future prospects of our young people and our economy as a whole. It will be paid for by new taxes on the largest, most profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans while cutting taxes for working people—all while reducing the deficit. The legislative process in America is always… Continue reading

No comments

This Is How (and How Many) Pennsylvanians Are Helped by the Build Back Better Plan

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation, US

Updated November 18, 2021. President Biden’s Build Back Better plan is an unprecedented and transformative plan to better the lives of all Americans—Black, brown, and white; those with low, moderate, or high incomes; the youngest children and the oldest seniors. We have given an overview of the whole program—but here we want to focus on the many ways Pennsylvanians will be touched by the Build Back Better plan. These preliminary estimates of the numbers of Pennsylvanians who will benefit from Build Back Better are from official government sources. Soon, we will be updating them with additional and more detailed estimates from policy analysts outside government. How the Build Back Better plan helps Pennsylvania’s children and families Provides access to affordable child care. Child care is a huge burden for families in our state. The annual average cost of sending a young child to a child care center in Pennsylvania is… Continue reading