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Category: My Work
PA Together: For Our Commonwealth One Page
Pennsylvania’s Choice: The Coming Fiscal Crisis Presentation
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on January 9, 2026. Continue reading
Pennsylvania’s Choice: The Coming Fiscal Crisis in Pennsylvania and What to Do About It
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on December 10, 2025. December 8, 2025 VIEW IN A PDF READER. The Coming Fiscal CrisisDownload Continue reading
Statement on the 2025–2026 Pennsylvania State Budget
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 12, 2025. Pennsylvania schools, social service providers, and local governments are grateful today that the General Assembly is poised to adopt a state budget for the fiscal year that began on July 1, 2025. When a budget is so late, the temptation is to just celebrate its completion. And while the budget contains one major achievement—a second year of school funding—there is much in this budget that we cannot celebrate. Here are our top takeaways from analyzing this budget: First, the budget makes a second major investment in meeting the state’s constitutional, as well as moral, responsibility to provide every student an adequate and equitable education. Governor Shapiro and House and Senate Democrats should be applauded for making education funding their top priority and insisting that the state stay on the course set out in last year’s budget. And Republicans should be… Continue reading
Statement on the End of the Federal Shutdown
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 10, 2025. STATEMENT: On the End of the Government Shutdown FROM: Marc Stier, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Policy Center DATE: November 10, 2025 For the American people, and for us at the Pennsylvania Policy Center, the government shutdown has not been a partisan struggle. It has been a fight to preserve the health insurance, and ultimately the well-being and lives, of millions of Pennsylvanians and Americans. And it has been about preserving our democracy by ensuring that the President cannot divert funding at will and override federal laws passed by the representatives of the American people in Congress. The shutdown has ended without attaining the first goal but with a small victory for the second goal as the independence and funding of an important arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, has been protected. We are disappointed that eight Democratic senators gave… Continue reading
The OBBBA Reconciliation Bill: A Threat to Food Assistance in Pennsylvania
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 28, 2025. October 11, 2025 by Marc Stier and Laura Beltrán Figueroa VIEW IN A PDF READER. OBBBA’s threat to SNAP second revisionDownload Continue reading
Editorial Board Memo: Federal Shutdown’s Impact on SNAP
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 22, 2025. To: Editorial Boards, Columnists, Reporters, Legislators and other Interested Parties From: Marc Stier, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Policy Center Re: Impact of the Federal Shutdown on SNAP and other recent pieces on the federal shutdown Date: October 22, 2025 As the federal shutdown continues, an urgent problem has arisen. SNAP recipients, including two million people in Pennsylvania, are at risk of losing their November benefits. But as our research director Laura Beltrán Figueroa points out in a new blog post, reproduced below, the administration clearly has the legal authority to take steps to protect those benefits. Other recent pieces we have written on the shutdown include: An overview of the goals in rejecting the Republican continuing resolution. A summary of the health care issues at stake in the shutdown debate. An overview of federal employees in Pennsylvania at risk. A refutation… Continue reading
The Continuing Shutdown Fight to Save Health Care and Democracy
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 22, 2025. October 16, 2025 By Marc Stier The federal shutdown, which began on October 1, 2025, continues. And the fundamental issues have not changed. The Republicans still want to pass a continuing resolution (CR) that would extend the budget from the year that ended on September 30th through sometime in November when, presumably, a full-year budget would be passed. That bill must be approved by a majority of the House and, because of the filibuster, 60 votes in the Senate. To get to those 60 votes, the Republicans need seven Democrats to vote for the CR. Because some Republicans in the House seek cuts to the budget, some Democratic votes may be necessary to pass the bill there as well. The need for Democratic votes means that this is a unique moment at which Democrats—and perhaps even a few Republicans who… Continue reading
Federal Shutdown Threatens Health Care for Nearly 1 million Pennsylvanians | Opinion
Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 22, 2025. October 20, 2025 by Marc Stier Originally published on October 15, 2025, at PennLive – Patriot News The dispute about health care is the central reason the federal government is shut down now. Democrats are telling Republicans in Congress that they will not vote for a continuing resolution to fund the government unless Republicans agree to: (1) extend the expanded tax credit subsidies that keep marketplace coverage affordable for most people. (2) reverse the deep cuts to Medicaid that the reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, imposed. Reversing those cuts is critical to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. Our state cut the uninsured rate nearly in half over the last decade, falling from 13.6% in 2013 to 7.1% in 2023. The big ugly reconciliation bill and the failure to extend expanded ACA tax credits will reverse… Continue reading