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Wisconsin Politics Comes to Pennsylvania: Huge tax cut for corporations

  By Pennsylvania Budget

Late last week, when many of us were focused on the struggle in Wisconsin between working people and the middle class on the one hand, and the corporate backed governor of Wisconsin on the other, that fight came to Pennsylvania. Republican Governor Tom Corbett’s Department of Revenue adopted new tax regulations that will reduce the corporate income tax by $200 million in 2010 and $833 million over two years. (If you don’t need to read more to know what you think about that, sign the Penn ACTION / Keystone Progress petition against this corporate giveaway here. And, at almost the same time AdultBasic, which provides health insurance for 42,000 working Pennsylvanians who do not qualify for medical assistance, ran out of money. Governor Corbett did nothing to save AdultBasic. What would it have cost to extend AdultBasic for another year? Just a bit less than the $200 million in Tom… Continue reading

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Don’t let Corbett sneak through his $833 million corporate tax giveaway!

  By Pennsylvania Budget

While Pennsylvania is facing a $4 billion deficit, Gov. Tom Corbett approved a corporate tax break of $833 million last week. He did it with almost no notice, hoping that Pennsylvania’s citizens wouldn’t find out.  It was done with such little notice, that even reporters and PA legislators were unaware of this giveaway until we told them. Well, we found out and we’re outraged.  Just this week Corbett told us we couldn’t afford to continue healthcare for the working poor.  But somehow he can find $833 million for billionaires and CEOs, sticking middle class families with the bill. Tell Corbett and your legislators to stop this outrageous giveaway! This is not only a giveaway to special interests, it’s a job destroying tax break.  It could cost Pennsylvania another 5-15,000 jobs.1 Politicians like Corbett are using our real economic problems as an excuse to pay back their corporate donors at the… Continue reading

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Corbett’s Unconscionable $833 million tax cut for corporations

  By Pennsylvania Budget

No money for Adult Basic but millions for big business Budgets are moral documents that set for the priorities of our government. Late last week, the Corbett Administration made clear that its top priority is helping American corporations not Pennsylvanians when it adopted new tax regulations that will reduce the corporate income tax by $200 million in 2010 and 833 over two years.1 With the state facing a $4 billion deficit that may lead to massive cuts in spending on education and health care, and with the AdultBasic program expiring at the end of the month, a reduction in corporate taxes is simply unconscionable. The Governor of the Commonwealth should not be putting the profits of corporations over the needs of people. The $200 million that the Corbett administration is giving away to corporations is more than the amount necessary to continue AdultBasic, which provides health insurance for 42,000 Pennsylvanians… Continue reading

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Noted attorney Larry Stier dead at 83–Sullivan County Democrat

  By Family Stories

Tuesday, February 22, 2011 By Kathy Daley LIBERTY—Lawrence Stier graduated from the best law school in the nation but he didn’t flaunt it and those he encountered wouldn’t have guessed it. “Larry was friendly, warm and low-key, so most people had no idea he graduated from Harvard Law School,” said local attorney Garry Greenwald. “He was a superb attorney, very, very bright, a fabulous judge and a decent man,” Greenwald noted. You could tell when had to sentence someone to jail that it was difficult for him. But he knew that he had to apply the law.” Stier, age 83, of Liberty died Sunday morning of complications from cancer. Continue reading

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Modeling activism: a eulogy for my father

  By Family Stories

This is a little longer version of the eulogy I gave for my father at his funeral today. I think he would have liked it although I can hear his voice saying, “It’s too long.” I want to tell you some things about my father’s life. But, before I do, I want to say something about how he died. As most of you know, he had been sick with pancreatic cancer since May. Pancreatic cancer is a deadly disease for which there is no cure. Death usually comes very quickly. My father lived almost ten months. He had two different rounds of chemotherapy. The first round seemed to have slowed the disease for a time but ultimately stopped working. The second round worked for a while, too, but then he had a bad reaction to it. That, and the spread of the disease, is probably what weakened him so much… Continue reading

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My father and the rally for Wisconsin workers

  By Family Stories, Pennsylvania, Politics, US

There is a rally for Wisconsin’s workers this week in Philly. Please join labor and other organizations including Penn ACTION to stand up for labor on Thursday 2/24/11 @ 11:30 PM at Thomas Paine Plaza in front of the Municipal Services Building across from Philadelphia City Hall. I won’t be there because my father died on Sunday and i’m with my family in upstate New York. But I’ve been thinking about how much my father benefited from public services that are now under attack and how much he was able to contribute to the public good because of those benefits. My father was able to go to college and law school because of the GI Bill. That education made it possible for him to provide for his family and also to dedicate himself to working with community organizations that built a regional hospital and a synagogue / community center. He… Continue reading

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The Right Wing War on Women and Health Care

  By Penn ACTION, Women and Health Care

t’s a classic case of bait and switch. The Republican campaign of 2010, nationally and in Pennsylvania, focused on the economy and jobs. But since taking office Republicans have instead been appeasing right wing extremists who want to roll back the advances women made in the last forty years. It began, in both Washington and Harrisburg, with legislation that would make it harder for women to use their own money to purchase health insurance that covers abortion. Having claimed, dishonestly, that the Affordable Care Act provides government funding for abortion, Republican legislation supposedly fixes the problem the invented. However their radical legislation goes much farther than the existing ban on government funding of abortion. Evidently, the Republican regard for the free market ends when it comes to women choosing how to send their own money. These new attempts to limit abortion rights are, however, just the beginning of the Republican… Continue reading

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We Won’t Go Back!

  By Health Care, Penn ACTION, Women and Health Care

Penn ACTION teamed up with Raising Women’s Voices of Southeastern PA on Thursday, February 17 when over 100 supporters of women’s health and health care reform rallied in Philadelphia in view of City Hall. Chants of  “We won’t go back!” punctuated addresses from State Sen. Lawrence Farnese, State Rep. Babette Josephs,  Carol Tracy from the Women’s Law Project,  Brenda Shelton Dunston of the Black Women’s Health Alliance, Dayle Steinberg from Planned Parenthood Southeastern PA, Kistine Carolan of the Maternity Care Coalition and Penn ACTION’s Marc Stier. As Stier pointed out, the attacks on women are not confined to attempts to role back access to reproductive care to the dark ages of back alley abortions, the attacks also extend to repealing the Affordable Care Act, which does more than any law in recent memory to bring women’s access to quality care into parity with men’s. With Planned Parenthood the target of possibly unconstitutional… Continue reading

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It's not about D or R, it's about democracy

  By Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s democracy needs the help of political activists like you today. Most people don’t pay much attention to the rules under which our legislatures operate. But you have seen what undemocratic procedures like the filibuster can do to our democracy. That’s why I writing to urge you to contact your State Representative to tell him or her to vote down the rules proposed by the House Republican leadership last week The new rules are deeply disturbing, not just for Democrats with a big D but for those of us who are democrats with a small d. They would further centralize power in the already too centralized PA House of Representatives and undermine the ability of rank and file Representatives of both parties to influence legislation. And when the power of our representatives is limited, so is the power of the people of this commonwealth. Under the proposed rule change, the… Continue reading

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Penn ACTION joins Gas Truth Protest

  By Marcellus Shale, Penn ACTION

Members of Penn ACTION joined a few hundred Pennsylvanians from all over the state at the Gas Truth protest at the inauguration of Governor Tom Corbett. Organized by Gas Truth and Clean Water Action, the rally called on Corbett to protect the state from the potential dangers of the drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. A variety of opinions were presented by the speakers at the event. Many called for a moratorium on all drilling. All called for a moratorium on drilling in the state forrests. Many called for a severence tax on natural gas. Penn ACTION Executive Director, Marc Stier, was the closing speaker at the rally. Stier focused on the political danger of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania saying that our democracy is one of the few things more important than our water. “Just as as the hydrofracking process have polluted our waters, the natural gas drillers have… Continue reading