Published in the Harrisburg Post-Gazette, July 1, 2010 Though Gov. Rendell and legislative leaders have reached an agreement, we still face a potential budget catastrophe. Only Republicans — gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett, Lt. Gov. Joseph Scarnati, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi and House Minority Leader Sam Smith — can prevent it. Continue reading
Published in the Philadelphia Dailiy News, June 21, 2010 A SPECTER is haunting American politics – it’s the great and growing fear of budget deficits. In Washington, public policies critical to restoring the health of our economy are being delayed because of the deficit. Outside Washington, politicians and opinion leaders, and some citizens, are wringing their hands about our deficits. Some of these opinion leaders, with foundation backing, are holding a series of public town halls about the deficit, including one in Philadelphia on June 26. We need to stop and think seriously about the kind of problem the deficit presents and how we should deal with it before we let hysteria lead us down the wrong path. We need to stop and think, first, about the difference between the immediate and the long-term budget deficit. Right now, our economy is recovering slowly from the most serious recession since the… Continue reading
Sometimes there is nothing that can do more harm than a really bad idea. An unwarranted fear of budget deficits threatens to stop economic recovery in its tracks and harm those who are suffering the worst effects of the great recession. Continue reading
Matt Ruben wrote a good op-ed in the Daily News today that points out that rape is a crime of violence against women and that calls for making the hate crimes law apply to such violence. I agree with this conclusion. But in the course of making the argument, Matt repeats a staple of feminist thought when he says that “research has demolished the myth that rape is a crime of lust or passion. It’s a crime of power: Men rape women because they seek to dominate and brutalize them.” That I don’t think is quite right. Rape is a sexual act as well as an act of domination. And we won’t understand rape, or the other ways both vile and much more innocuous, in which men dominate women unless we grasp that. Continue reading
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Nothing infuriates us teachers more than this saying. And with good reason, because both indirectly and directly, teachers are far more influential in practical life, than most of us realize. Continue reading
Yesterday, on the steps of the Montgomery County Court House health care advocates from Health Care for America Now, the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, Pennsylvania Communities Organizing for Change and Penn Action calling on Attorney General Tom Corbett to resign his office. Montgomery County Times-Herald coverage of the action, including video footage, can be found here. We took this action because Corbett has politicized an office that should be entirely above politics. Continue reading
Residents say that Corbett has compromised the integrity of the Office of Attorney General by politicizing the office Media, Pennsylvania—Outsidethe Delaware County Court House today, local health care activists called for Attorney General Tom Corbett to drop his participation in a lawsuit against the health care reform law recently enacted in Washington and then resign from office. Members of Health Care For America Now, the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, and Pennsylvania Communities Organizing for Change claimed that Corbett’s lawsuit against health care reform, and other actions he had taken, had so politicized the Attorney General’s office that the integrity of Mr. Corbett and his entire staff were now in question. “At a time when Pennsylvanians, including small businesses, people with serious pre-existing medical conditions, and young people under 26 are seeing immediate benefits from the health care reform legislation, it is deeply troubling that our Attorney General is using taxpayer funds… Continue reading
Residents say that Corbett has compromised the integrity of the Office of Attorney General by politicizing the office Media, Pennsylvania—Outside the Delaware County and Montgomery County Court Houses today, local health care activists called for Attorney General Tom Corbett to drop his participation in a lawsuit against the health care reform law recently enacted in Washington and then resign from office. Members of Health Care For America Now, the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, and Pennsylvania Communities Organizing for Change claimed that Corbett’s lawsuit against health care reform, and other actions he had taken, had so politicized the Attorney General’s office that the integrity of Mr. Corbett and his entire staff were now in question. “At a time when Pennsylvanians, including small businesses, people with serious pre-existing medical conditions, and young people under 26 are seeing immediate benefits from the health care reform legislation, it is deeply troubling that our Attorney… Continue reading
Health Care Reform and Job Creation in Pennsylvania, 2010-2019 Marc Stier, Ph.D.[1] President Barack Obama has said that “health care reform is our jobs program.”[2] But while economists largely agree with the President that health care reform will, in a number of different ways, lead to job growth, there have been only a few attempts to quantify the job creating benefits of health care reform. This paper draws on that research to quantify the number of jobs likely to be created in Pennsylvania in the ten years between 2010 and 2019. Our conclusion is that over this period, between 150,000 and 225,000 new jobs will be added to the Pennsylvania economy as a result of health care reform. Health care accounts for one-seventh of the national economy and health care reform will make dramatic changes in our health care system. It would be incredible if these changes did not have… Continue reading
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is now law but the Republicans in Washington and the states are not ready to accept it. In Pennsylvania, Republican Attorney General and Gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett has joined his colleagues from other states in filing a suit to have the whole law overturned by the courts. And he’s done so, in part, on the grounds that the the ACA will kill jobs in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. The Republican Party has fought every effort by President Obama and Governor Rendell to create jobs. So it’s ironic to see them attacking the ACA on these grounds. And more importantly, their argument is totally backwards. For two reasons, the ACA will create jobs all over the country and especially in Pennsylvania. First, health care reform will slow the growth in health care costs and that will lead to new jobs. Employer-paid health insurance premiums are, like wages… Continue reading