Category: Public Policy

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An Open Letter to State Representative Russ Diamond

  By COVID-19

Dear Representative Diamond, The other day you publicly shared an article about the possible dangers of the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. I read it and the underlying scientific article. While one can raise some quibbles about the scientific competence of computer scientists writing about viruses and vaccines, I actually think it is an excellent example of the kind of hard questioning that is central to the process of scientific inquiry. The article draws on some established and new theories to raise questions about whether the mRNA vaccines could have negative consequences. Without that kind of questioning and the research it generates, it is possible to miss unintended consequences of medical treatments. (I believe that some people with scientific expertise think that some of the theories put forward in the article are misunderstood or quite wrong. But I don’t have the expertise to make that judgment. My conclusions here presuppose that… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: The Shortfall in Rental Assistance Is a Policy Choice

  By Housing, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Statements

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, 45,000 households have applied for rental assistance as of Friday, August 6. But the City of Philadelphia only has enough funding to provide help for half of them, and more applications are coming in every day. No one should be surprised by this devastating result. In June, a PA Budget and Policy Center policy paper showed that the General Assembly had distributed federal funds for rental assistance in a way that shorted urban counties, which are also counties that have a higher share of Black families. The Pennsylvania General Assembly distributed emergency rental funds based on county population. At first glance, that may seem reasonable. But there is enormous variation in both the share of households that rent their homes in each county and in the cost of housing in each county. So, a population-based formula for distributing emergency rental funds short-changes our state’s urban… Continue reading

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Small Businesses and Workers Need Help From the State—And Each Other

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, PBPC Blog posts, Small / Local Business

Thanks to the American Rescue Plan enacted by President Biden, we’re seeing the economy recover faster than people suspected was possible when we were in the depths of the pandemic recession nine months ago. But that recovery doesn’t include everyone. Small businesses and many working people are still hurting. They need Pennsylvania’s government to help them by using the 7.5 million dollars of our tax money the General Assembly refused to spend in June. Fifteen months after the beginning of the pandemic, small business revenue in Pennsylvania is still down 28% relative to pre-COVID levels. It has continued to decline in the last two months. As of June 21st, the number of small businesses open in Pennsylvania was below that at the start of 2020 by about 37%. The last two months have seen a decline of roughly 10 percentage points. Many workers remain in trouble, too. As of May 2021,… Continue reading

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Statement on Need to Pivot to Reinvestment in Wake of Consolidation of PASSHE Schools

  By Higher Education, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 21, 2021 Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennbpc.org Statement on need to pivot to reinvestment in wake of consolidation of PASSHE schools By Marc Stier The decision by the PASSHE board of governors to adopt a radical consolidation plan is disappointing and may ultimately be self-defeating. It accommodates, and perpetuates, a failed 40-year disinvestment in public higher education in Pennsylvania. This disinvestment threatens opportunity for many Pennsylvanians and will weaken the state’s future economy, especially in the regions anchored by PASSHE campuses. To avoid these consequences, state lawmakers need to pivot now to a reinvestment strategy, capitalizing on the federal resources in the American Rescue Plan and likely to be part of federal infrastructure legislation. Higher education remains a critical path to both individual and communal success and happiness. Yet devastating cutbacks in state funding have made the cost of attending four-year state universities, relative to median income,… Continue reading

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Blockbuster Investigation on Tax Avoidance Shows Clear Need for Bold Federal Tax Changes 

  By Billionaire tax, Erica Freeman, Federal Taxes, Other authors, Taxation

By Erica Freeman Last month’s ProPublica revelations identified what many experts, some lawmakers, and a majority of Americans already knew about the U.S. tax code: Policymakers over the past several decades have created a system that allows some of the nation’s wealthiest individuals to pay little or no federal income tax each year.   Ongoing negotiations over the next round of recovery legislation give Congress an opportunity to reverse course by closing loopholes and rolling back tax cuts for those at the top, thereby raising the revenue needed to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure and respond to economic and racial inequalities, according to a new report from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities.  Improving and expanding the taxation of wealth will bring more balance to the country’s tax code and raise the revenue we need to invest in a recovery that helps Pennsylvania and other states build a better future and an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy. Pennsylvania families contribute to… Continue reading

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Small Businesses and Workers Still Need Help

  By Economic Development, PA Economy, Policy briefs, Small / Local Business

By Maisum Murtaza, Claire Kovach, Stephen Herzenberg and Marc Stier state budget enacted in late June has two glaring and interrelated missing pieces: it provides little support for the small businesses and for the working people of Pennsylvania who are still suffering from the impact of the pandemic. Small businesses are still hurting. Fifteen months after the beginning of the pandemic, small business revenue in Pennsylvania is still down 28% relative to pre-COVID levels. It has continued to decline in the last two months. As of June 21st, the number of open small businesses in Pennsylvania was down compared to the start of 2020 by about 37%. The last two months have seen a decline of roughly 10 percentage points. Workers are still hurting, too. As of May 2021, Pennsylvania is still more than 400,000 jobs short of the level in February 2020 The unemployment rate has remained around 7%… Continue reading

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Senator Mastriano’s Proposed Election Inquisition

  By Elections and Voting, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

There is no evidence to suggest any serious flaws in the 2020 election process—the results have been thoroughly scrutinized. Senator Douglas Mastriano’s ongoing efforts to suggest otherwise are like ghost stories, intended to make people uneasy or frightened. The inquiry Senator Mastriano proposes would be enormously costly and a logistical nightmare to manage. He is asking Pennsylvania counties for so much material that it is hard to imagine how it would be transported to Harrisburg, where it would be stored, where the many staff members needed to review it would be found or paid for, or how the counties would run their next election this fall without the machines on which people vote and which count their votes. This inquiry is being proposed by someone whose own involvement in undermining a free and fair election is clear. Investigations regarding the January 6th insurrection are ongoing and should include Senator Mastriano’s… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: PBPC Supports Gov Wolf’s Veto of the HB 1300 Voting Bill

  By Elections and Voting, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 30, 2021 Contact: Kirstin Snow snow@pennbpc.org Statement by Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Wholeheartedly Supports the Governor’s Veto of HB 1300         HB 1300 would make voting harder and more complicated. It would make the election process more confusing. It is a dishonest attempt to build on the mistrust of the 2020 election results that were sowed, in large part, by the very people who are putting this legislation forward. Many of the supporters of HB 1300 called on the United States Congress to overturn the decision of Pennsylvania voters in 2020, which was a blatant attack on our democracy. There is a useful proposal in HB 1300 that would allow county officials to do a minimal amount of ballot pre-processing. It would have been even better, however, if it gave voters a meaningful opportunity to cure… Continue reading

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Memo: The Budget No One Wants

  By Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget

To: Editorial boards, columnists, political reporters, and other interested parties From: Marc Stier, Director, PA Budget and Policy Center Re: 2021-22 Pennsylvania Budget Date: June 22, 2021 We may not know the details of the Pennsylvania General Fund budget that the General Assembly will adopt until sometime tomorrow. But the overall shape of the budget is becoming clear. And it is profoundly disappointing. The General Assembly has roughly $10 billion that could—and should—be used to help those whose lives have been most disrupted by the pandemic and to take major steps towards creating a more just and inclusive economy. The urgent need for more public investment could not be clearer: Pennsylvania has the most unequal K-12 school funding in the country. Our analysis shows that the average school district has a severe funding gap when measured by state standards. But the gap is ten times as big for school districts… Continue reading

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The PA Budget: A Disgrace and Dereliction of Duty

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Statements

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 25, 2021 Contact: Adrienne Standley standley@pennbpc.org 717-805-8466 Statement by Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center The General Fund budget being presented today is a disgrace and a dereliction of duty. The state is flush with more than $10 billion in our federal and state tax dollars which could be spent both to help those who have been left behind by the pandemic and to take a first step toward addressing the deep inequities that long preceded it. But the Republican leaders of the PA General Assembly plan to leave that money in the bank. About $7.5 billion of the funds available will be reserved to provide one more temporary fix to budget deficits created not by the pandemic but by ten years of Republican-led fiscal mismanagement that includes deep cuts to corporate taxes which now cost the state $4 billion per year in new… Continue reading