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Category: Memos
PBPC on the PA Budget: This Is NOT a Budget for the People
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 7, 2022 Contact: Kirstin Snow, snow@pennbpc.org To: Members of the PA General Assembly, State Legislative Staff, Political reporters, Editorial Board Writers, and Columnists From: Marc Stier, Director, PA Budget and Policy Center Statement on Proposed Budget: PA Budget & Policy Center – This is NOT a budget for the people The new Pennsylvania Budget is a deep disappointment for Pennsylvania. At a time when the state is flush with cash, the Republican-led General Assembly has failed to meet the immediate needs of the vast majority of Pennsylvanians or invest enough in our future. Yet the budget does include an unnecessary and costly long-term cut in corporate taxes causing a one-year loss of $250 million in revenue in the current fiscal year will grow, to $2.25 billion per year at the end of eight years. Yet the state will still not ask wealthy, multinational corporations to pay… Continue reading
MEMO: PA House Bill 1800 Is Voter Suppression and Its Amendments Are Shameful
To: Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly From: Marc Stier, Director, PA Budget and Policy Center Re: HB 1800 and proposed amendments The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center opposes nearly all the provisions of HB 1800 and urges members of the House to vote against it. We evaluate the legislative proposals about elections with three criteria in mind: First, they should make voting easier and more accessible for the people of Pennsylvania. Second, while they should preserve the security of our elections, they should not include security features that are unnecessary or that make voting less accessible. And third, they should provide sufficient funds to the county governments that administer our elections. Sufficient funding for our elections would resolve most of the technical problems with elections in Pennsylvania today. By these standards, HB 1800 is not genuine election reform at all. We will consider the details of the bill below.… Continue reading
Memo: The Budget No One Wants
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
The Problem with Act 77: Eliminating Straight Ticket Voting
Originally published by KRC-PBPC here. To: State legislators, editorial board writers, political reporters, and interested parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Re: Elimination of Straight-Ticket Voting and Related Matters Voting is the fundamental political right of all Americans. And so, election reform must mean making it easier, rather than harder, for Americans to cast their votes for every office. Sadly, there is a long legacy in this country of doing the opposite. Whether put forward by racists determined to protect white supremacy or good government “reformers” determined to weaken the political power of immigrants and the working class, American states have adopted a series of proposals—such as onerous barriers to registration, limited hours and times for voting, too-frequent purges of the voter rolls, and Voter ID laws—that, inadvertently or in many cases deliberately, have made it more difficult to vote. A package of election reforms is now under… Continue reading
Judicial Districts and Judicial Independence
To: Legislators, legislative staff, editorial board members, columnists, other interested parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Subject: Judicial Districts and Judicial Independence This week the Republican leadership of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives plan to take up an HB 196, a constitutional amendment proposed by Representative Russ Diamond to elect the appellate court judges who sit on the Supreme Court and the two second-level courts, the Commonwealth Court and Superior Court, by districts rather than in statewide elections. This proposal is similar to the Aument amendment to SB22, a redistricting reform proposal that passed the Senate but stalled in the House last year. HB 196 is deeply problematic for three reasons. First, given the role judges play in our constitutional government, district election is unnecessary. We elect legislators by district because it is important that regional interests be accounted for in the process of enacting legislation.… Continue reading
MEMO: Analysis of the PA Senate Redistricting Commission Plan and the Folmer Amendment
This memo outlines how the Folmer proposal is worse than the process we have now in four important respects. The redistricting process created by Senator Mike Folmer’s version of SB 22 passed by the Senate State Government Committee last week does initially look like a move toward nonpartisan redistricting, and for that reason some reform groups have said it is a step forward. But while we at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center support the goal of a nonpartisan system of drawing Congressional and state legislative districts lines, the process that would be put in place by the Folmer plan is so far from desirable that we urge the full Senate to reject it and start over. Continue reading
Why the House Tax Proposal is Bad for Pennsylvanians
While the tax cuts proposed in the House of Representatives plan may not be the largest in American history, they are very likely the ones most weighted to benefit the very richest Americans. This press memo, shared on November 13, 2017, outlines why the House of Representative’s tax proposal is bad for Pennsylvanians. Click here to print or read full screen. Continue reading
On the PA House GOP Budget Plan to Raid Special Funds
This press memo, released on September 5, 2017, details how the budget plan released by a group of Republican House members fails in the most important task before our state today: to resolve the long-term structural imbalance between expenditures and revenues. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: September 5, 2017 Re: On the PA House GOP Budget Plan to Raid Special Funds The budget plan released today by a group of Republican House members fails in the most important task before our state today: to resolve the long-term structural imbalance between expenditures and revenues. Even if every fund transfer proposed by the Republican back-benchers today were constitutional and legal, and even if they had no impact on the commitments made by the General Assembly to provide funding for public purposes, this one-time transfer will provide almost no… Continue reading
Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget
Since 2010, Pennsylvania has consistently enacted budgets that, instead of being paid for by current revenues, borrow from the future. The general fund budget has been balanced by borrowing from other funds, shifting spending from one fiscal year to the next, and more. In this press memo, we outline a few revenue options with bipartisan support that could provide at least some of the long-term revenues needed to balance Pennsylvania’s budget. MEMO To: Editorial Page Editors, Editorial Board Members, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Director, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center Date: July 10, 2017 Re: Revenue Options to Finish the 2017-18 Budget As legislative leadership and Governor Wolf look to wrap up the revenue portion of the 2017-18 state budget, the remaining negotiations is at least focused on the right subject: finding adequate and sustainable long-term revenues. Unfortunately, rather than work for new recurring revenues, Republican Leadership continues on the irresponsible… Continue reading