Category: Penn Policy Center

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Cutting Business Taxes Is the Wrong Strategy for Philadelphia

  By Blog post, Op-ed, Penn Policy Center, Published Op-Eds

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 4, 2025. June 3, 2025 By Marc Stier Sometime at the beginning of the next decade, the City of Philadelphia’s pension fund will be fully funded. As a result, the City will be able to stop making catch-up payments, which are roughly $400 million per year. The question then is: What should our city do with that money? Mayor Parker’s answer is to deeply cut part of the business income and receipts tax (BIRT) as the recent Tax Reform Commission (TRC) has recommended. But the members of the community advisory committee to the TRC and I have another idea that we think is better. We all know that, despite the great wealth in our city, the share of Philadelphia’s population that lives in poverty is the highest among large US cities. Yet the city does far too little to reduce poverty. Why… Continue reading

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Statement: House Republicans’ Budget Plan Sets Stage for Largest Cuts to Medicaid, SNAP in Programs’ Histories

  By Penn Policy Center, Statement

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 22, 2025. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  May 22, 2025  Contact: Levana Layendecker, layendecker@pennpolicy.org House Republicans’ Budget Plan Sets Stage for Largest Cuts to Medicaid, SNAP in Programs’ Histories Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – Early this morning, the House passed the budget reconciliation bill containing deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP and tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy. “Almost every step towards the passage of the huge, ugly reconciliation bill has taken place in the middle of the night,” says Marc Stier, the executive director of Pennsylvania Policy Center. “Why? Because the more people know about its provisions, the more horrified they are by it. The changes made this week make it even worse. Extremist Republicans demanded deeper cuts to Medicaid and further tax breaks for the rich. They got them. The so-called moderates who said they would protect Medicaid folded.” The result is a… Continue reading

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The Republican Budget Plan Will Lead to the Largest Redistribution from the Working and Middle Class to the Ultra-Rich in US History

  By Blog post, Penn Policy Center, Policy Brief

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 16, 2025. House Republicans are moving with a budget reconciliation bill that makes deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP to pay for tax cuts to the ultra rich.  One charts sums up the impact of the reconciliation bill. The cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and SNAP total a bit more than 1.1 trillion over ten years.. And that is equal to the tax cuts for people with incomes above $500,000. The Bill Undermines Health Care and Food Security Nationwide While Cutting Taxes Mostly for the Rich Medicaid is and SNAP are on the chopping block. Nationwide, at least 13.7 million people could see their health coverage taken away under the House Republicans’ budget plan attack on both Medicaid and the ACA. In addition, many of the 42 million people who participate in SNAP could lose help affording groceries.   The budget bills passed… Continue reading

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The Energy and Commerce Medicaid Proposal in Context

  By Blog post, Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 12, 2025. May 12, 2025 By Marc Stier The Energy and Commerce Committee Medicaid Plan Release Last Night  Last night the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a chairman’s mark (or chairman’s draft) of its proposals for cutting Medicaid. According to a Congressional Budget Office preliminary analysis, the proposal includes very deep cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, totaling $715 billion over ten years.  This is worse than what we expected.  According to the CBO, the result is that between Medicaid and ACA cuts, 14.2 million people nationwide will lose health insurance. Other cuts not included in the CBO analysis might raise the total to 17 million people. Our rough estimate is that between 548,000 and 680,000 Pennsylvanians will lose health insurance. (We will have a firmer analysis in a few days.) This translates roughly into between 57,000 and 70,000 people losing health insurance in the 8th Congressional District in Northeast Pennsylvania and roughly half that amount… Continue reading

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The Trump–Republican Threat to Fair Taxes and Fiscal Integrity

  By Blog post, Policy Paper

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 12, 2025. VIEW IN A PDF READER. The Trump-Republican Tax Plan RevisedDownload Continue reading

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Projecting the Costs to the Pennsylvania Budget of Federal Safety Net Cuts

  By Blog post, Penn Policy Center, Policy Brief

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 9, 2025. VIEW IN A PDF READER. FINAL Projecting the Costs of Safety Net Cuts to PADownload Continue reading

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Seven Myths About Raising the Minimum Wage—Debunked (2025 update)

  By Blog post, Op-ed, Penn Policy Center, Published Op-Eds

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 5, 2025. May 5, 2025 By Marc Stier Note: This is an updated version of a piece I wrote while I was director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. It was published in the Penn Capital–Star on October 3, 2019. A few things have changed since then—and I’ve added sixth and seventh myths to supplement the original five—but most of the arguments I made at that time not only remain true but are supported by new evidence. Raising the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is long overdue. Yet even though the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a good minimum wage bill in 2023 that was actually modeled on one introduced in the Senate, Pennsylvania’s Senate Republican leadership continues to refuse to hold a hearing or bring it up for a vote where, we believe, it would almost certainly pass. Some legislators remain… Continue reading

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The Trump–Republican Threat to Medicaid

  By Blog post, Policy Paper

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on May 3, 2025. VIEW IN A PDF READER. The Threat to Medicaid Revised UpdateDownload Continue reading

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Kicking the Can Down the Road: Statement on the House Budget Resolution Vote

  By Blog post

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on April 10, 2025. As we predicted a few days ago, the US House of Representatives passed a budget resolution this morning after Speaker Johnson convinced enough right-wing Republican members of the Freedom Caucus to put aside their misgivings and vote for it.  However, the vote does not make any hard decisions about either cuts to Medicaid and SNAP or about tax cuts for the rich. Instead, it kicks the can down the road to a later date when Republicans in Congress will have to reach a budget plan that can pass both the House and Senate. Given the division between more moderate and more extreme members, it is not clear they will reach such an agreement.  The budget resolution sets up legislative committees in the House and Senate to devise specific proposals to meet the goals of the budget resolution. Their work will… Continue reading

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Don’t Trust the Process: Where Trump’s Budget Bill Stands

  By Blog post

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on April 8, 2025. April 8, 2025 By Marc Stier I want to give you an update on the Trump–Republican budget process. I’m going to start with an overview of the political situation surrounding this process and talk about our prospects for making the budget less harmful or even killing the whole Republican effort. Then I’m going to review what we expect to happen in the House this week. Finally, for those who want them, I’ll discuss some of the gory details of this process. Two months ago, we thought the critical moment in the budget process would be right now, when the House and Senate have to agree on a budget resolution. But the Senate has now passed a budget resolution that essentially puts off the difficult decisions to the next two stages of the process, when the legislative committees in the House… Continue reading