Category: Politics

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Don’t Let the Extremists Win

  By Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State Taxes, Taxation

There are lots of rumors about a budget deal flying around Harrisburg but few details and even less assurance that votes will be found to approve in the House and the Senate. What little we hear is concerning. And the best way to understand our concerns is to look again at why we have not reached a deal until this point—extremists control the Republican Party in the House. There is a broad agreement among Democrats and most Republicans that Pennsylvania has a structural budget deficit (which simply means that year after year revenues will not pay for state expenditures, either those approved by the General Assembly this year or those demanded by Pennsylvania voters). There is broad agreement among Democrats and most Republicans that we need new tax revenues to close the deficit this year and in the future. And there is broad agreement that a severance tax should be… Continue reading

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The GOP Federal Tax Proposal: Multiple Reasons to Worry

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

The outline of the tax proposal released by President Trump and Republican House and Senate leaders should worry all Pennsylvanians for multiple reasons. First, the plan calls for adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years. This is remarkably hypocritical, given that Republicans blamed President Obama for deficits even as they declined year after year after the end of the Great Recession. And it is economically risky at a time when the economy is growing. Republicans claim that tax cuts will generate much faster economic growth. This is unbelievable, given the record of previous huge tax cuts during times of economic growth. And, of course, most professional economists, on both the Left and Right, do not believe it at all. Second, the likely result of added deficits will be new pressure to cut federal spending to balance those deficits, with most of those cuts coming from health… Continue reading

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Graham-Cassidy Repeal Bill — Just Plain Bad for Pennsylvania

  By ACA, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, US

As I write this, it is possible that the Graham-Cassidy bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and make major changes to the traditional Medicaid program is already dying or dead. Two Republican members of the Senate, McCain of Arizona and Paul of Kentucky, have said they will vote against it. Senator Collins of Maine has announced that she is leaning against it. I’m hopeful that Senator Murkowski of Alaska will all announce that she is against it.  And when that happens, I expect a substantial group of Senators will join them because this bill is truly dangerous to every state and the only reason it is even being considered is that Senate Republicans fear the short-term political costs of disappointing their base voters and funders more than they fear the long-term costs of doing great harm to their constituents. Once it is clear that there is no path forward… Continue reading

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Budgets and Balances: The PA House GOP Budget Plan to Raid Special Funds Explained

  By Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

The Pennsylvania House Republican plan to balance the budget in part by raiding other state funds is something of a moving target. A new amendment Representative Moul (A03286) to House Bill 593 is the legislative vehicle in which elements of the plan will move to the floor of the House as early as today. We want to take a step back and put the whole plan to use supposedly “surplus” money that is “sitting around doing nothing” into perspective. This plan rests on a fundamental confusion between bank balances and budgets, one that has played a role in the life of most married couples once or twice. And perhaps the easiest way to understand it is to consider a scenario not unfamiliar to most of us. One partner — I’m going to make him the husband in this version but it doesn’t have to be — picks up a flyer from… Continue reading

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How to eliminate Pennsylvania’s budget deficit

  By Budget, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Public Policy, Taxation

Originally published by the Allentown Morning Call on July 31, 2017 Members of the General Assembly were recently sworn in to office only to face another budget crisis. Between an already existing structural deficit, higher-than-expected human services costs, yet-to-be-realized gaming license revenue and a general revenue shortfall, the combined deficit for this year and next in Pennsylvania is roughly $3 billion. Leaders of the General Assembly rightly oppose a substantial general tax increase to fix the deficit. A higher personal income or sales tax rate would make our tax system even more upside down than it is today. Pennsylvania taxes those with high incomes at a far lower proportion than those with low incomes. State and local taxes take 12 percent of the income of families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale, 10.3 percent of the income of the middle 20 percent of families, but only 4.2… Continue reading

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Extremist anti-government fever breaking

  By Pennsylvania, Published Op-Eds, US

Originally published in the York Dispatch on July 28, 2017 I do reality-based policy analysis as director of the Pennsylvanian Budget and Policy Center. We take a detailed look at the numbers, from several points of view, before we make or endorse tax or spending proposals. We have our moral touchstones — we seek a political community with broadly shared prosperity — but we try very hard not to let our goals determine our analysis. And that’s because we really believe in our moral stance and we know that public policy must be carefully and thoroughly vetted if it is going to be effective in attaining its goals. We don’t seek to pass legislation that sounds good but doesn’t actually help working people and the middle class secure the opportunity to achieve a better quality of life. Still, I would be the first to admit that it is not analysis, but… Continue reading

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It Can’t Be Fixed: Policy and Politics in the Republican Health Care Bill

  By ACA, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, Policy reports, US

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I Was HOJO Girl Number 14

  By About me, Feminism, Racial Justice, White Supremacy and Structural Racism

                      At the start of the summer of 1973, the year after my parents sold our hotel where I worked every summer from the time I was 11 to 16, I needed a job. When the new owners of the hotel called our house to ask where the switches were to turn on the lamp posts on the sidewalks, I said would work for them as a handyman which is what I had done at the hotel, among other things,  for two summers. I did have the capacity to fix many things, especially plumbing, and I knew the physical plant of the hotel. But they wouldn’t pay me the $125 a week I asked for so I need another alternative. Since I had some experience in the dining room and my cousin and some of her and my friends worked… Continue reading

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PRESS MEMO: New Estimates of the Loss of Federal Funding to Pennsylvania from the Senate Health Care Bill

  By ACA, Health Care, Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center, US

The Manatt Health Group and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a study on the impact of the Senate health care bill, the Better Reconciliation Act of 2017, on the states. Their estimates of the impact of the bill confirms our recent study showing that Pennsylvania will suffer devastating reductions in federal funding for Medicaid. It also offers some more fine-grained detail on the nature of these reductions. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: July 7, 2017 Re: New Estimates of the Loss of Federal Funding to Pennsylvania from the Senate Health Care Bill The Manatt Health Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have released a new study of the impact of the Senate health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017, on the states. Their estimates of the impact of the bill confirms… Continue reading

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The Republicans Of My Youth Didn’t Encourage Vice

  By Politics, US

Marc Stier | 06/30/2017 Blog Note: This is the second of two pieces on the Republicans of my youth.. Part II: Encouraging Vice The Republicans of my youth were not only men of fiscal rectitude, they were men of moral rectitude. I can’t say what they did in private. I’m sure some of them drank from time to time and some drank too much. They probably also gambled from time to time either on a trip to Las Vegas or at the local trotter track, or maybe with a local bookie. But in public they frowned on these vices. They believed that people had a right to make their own choices, but they believed that government had a responsibility to direct people away from behavior that could be dangerous to themselves or others.   And they certainly didn’t think the government should be encouraging drinking or gambling. When the lottery… Continue reading