Category: Editorial Board Memo

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Editorial Board Memo: Federal Shutdown’s Impact on SNAP

  By Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

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

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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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Another ‘Blue Shift’ Is Coming

  By Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on October 23, 2024.   MEMO: Another Blue Shift Coming TO: Editorial Board Writers, Columnists, and Other Interested Parties FROM: Marc Stier and Erica Freeman, Pennsylvania Policy Center SUBJECT: Another “blue shift” coming in PA election returns  DATE: October 23, 2024 In late October of 2020, we wrote for the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center a paper titled, “2020 Election Expectations: High Numbers of Mail-Votes and the Blue Shift.” We explained that due to Democrats being far more likely than Republicans to vote by mail, the initial count of the votes on Election Day would show Republicans ahead in many state-wide and local races—but that as mail ballots were counted, there would be a “blue shift” as vote tallies showed Democrats’ number of votes catching up to, and in many cases surpassing, the Republicans’. We warned that Donald Trump and his followers would use the… Continue reading

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Ed. Bd. Memo: A State Earned Income Tax Credit Should Be Part of a Budget Deal in 2024

  By Blog post, Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 27, 2024. To: Members of the General Assembly, editorial board members, and political reporters From: Marc Stier, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Policy Center Subject: What we are looking for in a budget agreement Date: July 1, 2024 The Pennsylvania state budget is now officially late. By all reports, however, House and Senate negotiators, as well as the governor’s office, are working diligently to reach an agreement. We are not concerned by a brief delay as we know that the issues under consideration are complex and that necessary compromises are difficult in a divided government. We do want to set out some criteria by which we will evaluate a successful compromise. Enactment of a plan to meet our constitutional and moral responsibility to fully and fairly fund our schools, along the lines proposed by the Basic Education Funding Commission and with first-year funding at the level proposed by Governor Shapiro. A limited tax cut directed toward the Pennsylvanians who most suffer from… Continue reading

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Editorial Board Memo on Education Funding in Pennsylvania

  By Blog post, Editorial Board Memo, Penn Policy Center

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on November 22, 2023. November 22, 2023 In February 2023, Judge Renée Cohn Jubelirer called for a new funding system in Pennsylvania to fulfill the state’s obligation to provide a thorough and efficient education for its children. The Basic Education Funding Commission has been charged by Governor Shapiro and legislative leaders with developing a response to Judge Jubelirer’s decision in the school funding lawsuit, which held that every student in Pennsylvania should have—but doesn’t have now—access to a “comprehensive, effective, and contemporary system of public education,” as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution. The Pennsylvania Policy Center has prepared materials for the Commission that address a number of questions raised during its hearing, drawing on both our own analysis of education policy in Pennsylvania and summaries of the relevant academic research. As members of the General Assembly will ultimately be making the critical decisions about… Continue reading