Category: PA Budget and Policy Center

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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

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PBPC-State Innovation Exchange Poll on Budget and Democracy Issues

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Polling

The poll we are releasing today was commissioned by the State Innovation Exchange and the PA Budget and Policy Center. It is the third poll on tax, budget, and democracy issues sponsored by the two organizations. The poll is also part of a six-state public opinion survey effort by the State Innovation Exchange. Topline Findings: American Rescue Plan and PA Budget As the Pennsylvania economy continues to reverse course from the pandemic, this poll shows clearly that PA voters have a big appetite for public investment and little appetite for austerity. The poll shows that by a 3-1 margin Pennsylvanians prefer investing American Rescue Plan funds in people and businesses over using the money to pay down structural budget deficits. It shows overwhelming support for a range of public investments with ARP funds, including: Low-interest small business loans Combating homelessness, lack of affordable housing, and food insecurity Hazard pay for… Continue reading

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Why House Bill 1300 is a Clear Attempt to Restrict Voting

  By Democracy, Statements, Voting

  “The vast majority of us care about democratic government and want secure and free elections. We want to go to the polls and know that our vote is being counted. We want it to be easy to vote. We want all eligible voters—not ineligible ones—to cast their ballots. We want our votes to be counted fairly, and we want to know who won relatively quickly. And, ultimately, we want everyone to acknowledge the legitimate results of free and fair elections. We can have modern free, fair, and secure elections. We can use technology to ensure that people are able to vote conveniently and without sacrificing security. Yet on Tuesday, the House State Government Committee, in a purely partisan vote, moved a bill that makes voting harder. It would make the election process more confusing, change deadlines for no reason, and would roll back alternative and easy ways to vote… Continue reading

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The FY2021-22 PA State Budget: The People’s Budget & Tracking ARP Funds in PA

  By American Rescue Plan, Federal Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania Budget, Video

This is a recording of a Zoom meeting hosted by the PA Budget & Policy Center on Thursday, April 15, 2021, to provide updates related to PA’s state budget and the allocation of the $7.3 billion in assistance that the American Rescue Plan delivered to PA’s state government. PBPC director Marc Stier talks about the fiscal challenges facing the Commonwealth and discusses the “People’s Budget,” an effort by several legislators to propose a way to raise the revenue necessary to make long-overdue investments in important programs and priorities. The video also features PBPC’s senior policy analyst Diana Polson presenting recently updated information about how American Rescue Act funds will be distributed in PA, highlighting an online spreadsheet for tracking these allocations: Tracking American Rescue Plan Funding Distribution in PA.    Continue reading

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ANALYSIS: Governor Wolf’s Proposed 2020-21 State Budget

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

The Pennsylvania Budget & Policy Center’s analysis of Governor Tom Wolf’s proposed state budget for FY2020-21 will be presented as a webinar at 9 am this Monday, March 23. The presenters will be PBPC director, Marc Stier, and PBPC’s senior policy analyst, Diana Polson, along with Stephen Herzenberg, the executive director of the Keystone Research Center. In addition to providing an overview of the governor’s budget proposal, the webinar will also include some of PBPC’s ideas about how PA should be responding to the coronavirus pandemic and how the state budget may need to be adjusted in light of a recession that seems imminent. You can read PBPC’s COVID-19 proposed action plan “The Moral Equivalent of Wartime Equality: Public Policies in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Pennsylvania.”   Continue reading

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A minimum wage hike would reverse 40-year pay stagnation for working people

  By Minimum Wage, PBPC Blog posts, Published op-eds

Originally published in The Morning Call on March 11, 2021 Raising the minimum wage is about helping low-income workers do better — but not just that. It is about changing the rules of our economy so that we all do better, now and in the future. To all do better we must reverse the 40-year trend that has seen skyrocketing incomes and wealth for the owners and executives of the largest corporations while income for working people and the middle class has been stagnant. This transformation was not the necessary result of a free market economy. The economy is a human creation subject to the rules we choose. Political and legal changes made at the behest of the corporate elite deliberately tilted the economy to their advantage and against the working and middle classes, as well as small businesses. What were those changes? First, lawmakers allowed the value of the… Continue reading