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It’s Not Really About Work: Why Pennsylvania Should Reject Work Requirements
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The Trump Tax Bill Wasn’t For You
By Sean Kitchen It’s Tax Day 2018, and you know what that means? The country’s wealthiest Americans are about to experience long-term gains from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center is concerned about the effects of the tax cut law and legislation that would make temporary tax cuts permenant after 2025. A new report from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the top 1% will receive more federal tax dollars than the bottom 60% in 47 states, and the top 20% will gobble up the majority of returns from the temporary tax provisions that were baked into the bill as tax cuts for the middle class. The top 20% will also receive a larger and more disproportionate tax cut in relation to their income. The report published by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy explains that those in the top 20%… Continue reading
“Work Requirements” and the Political Appeal of Cruelty
From Third and State, April 17, 2018 We at PBPC are engaged in a major effort to push back against legislation in the PA General Assembly to create work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP. The new federal Farm Bill put forward by House Republicans, which authorizes the SNAP (Food Stamp) program, has similar provisions. We have been pointing out that the stereotypes used to justify work requirements are simply untrue. We show that stereotypes that justify harsh measures affecting those who are struggling with low incomes are based on falsehoods. The American social safety net almost entirely benefits people who cannot work — the elderly, ill, and disabled — or working Americans. It offers very little to able-bodied men and women who do not work. People who receive Medicaid and food stamps mostly work when they can find employment and are not ill, disabled, in school, or taking care of young children… Continue reading
Work requirement bills are a cruel election-year ploy
Published in the York Dispatch on April 14, 2018 Republicans are rushing legislation to create “work requirements” for recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps through the General Assembly. A bill to create “work requirements” for Medicaid may be voted on as early as Monday. Similar legislation for SNAP will likely be considered shortly thereafter. The Republican rationale for work requirements rests on the old, stereotypical (and false) idea that those who rely on the social safety net are unwilling to work because they are lazy or because the very existence of the safety net creates a “culture of dependency” that discourages work. It assumes that people with low-incomes are different from, and less deserving than, the rest of us. And, between the lines, supporters of this legislation imply that the recipients of Medicaid and SNAP are urban, people of color. None… Continue reading
PreK-12 Education Funding in Pennsylvania: Where Do We Stand?
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Tax cuts for wealthy won’t bring prosperity to PA
Originally published in Public Opinion, March 21, 2018 In the aftermath of the Trump-GOP tax cut enacted at the end of the last year, some legislators and advocates are calling for Pennsylvania to also cut tax rates for both individuals and corporations in the hopes of spurring economic growth and job creation. It is hard to think of a worse idea for our political community, not only because it is unfair, but because it has been tried and failed again and again. Pennsylvania has one of the most unequal tax systems in the country. Low-income Pennsylvanians pay 12% of their income in state and local taxes while middle-income Pennsylvanians pay 10%. But those with incomes in the top 5% pay only 6.8% of their income taxes while the top 1% pay only 4.2%. With a tax system this unfair, why should we emulate a federal tax cut that mostly reduces taxes for those at the top? It wouldn’t be because cutting taxes for the rich… Continue reading
Governor’s 2018-19 Budget Overview
With Diana Polson and Stephen Herzenberg In 2018-19, Governor Wolf has presented another austere budget that, within the political limits of Harrisburg, makes progress on issues critical to Pennsylvanians. But because of those political limits- and through no fault of the governor- it does not make fast enough progress. This document presents an overview of the Governor’s proposed 2018-19 budget, and how we believe it continues to move Pennsylvania forward despite difficult circumstances. Continue reading
Why the PA Supreme Court’s Lines Should Stand
From Third and State, March 5, 2018 The effort by the General Assembly’s Republican leaders to have the United States Supreme Court block the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to create new, fair congressional districts in our state is based on both a hypocritical attempt to undermine the rights of states and a flawed understanding of the subtle, yet fundamental, ideas of our constitutional system. The vehemence with which they are pursuing their case makes one wonder whether those ideas can survive in a day and age when so many politicians, especially on the Right, appear to have neither the intellect to understand principles that are the least bit complicated nor the integrity to follow them when they cut against the results they seek. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated the 2011 Congressional redistricting plan on the basis of the Pennsylvania Constitution not the United States Constitution. That is why the PA… Continue reading
Rethinking Philadelphia Taxes to Fund Education
Last year, Mayor Jim Kenney boldly called for the School Reform Commission (SRC) to be disbanded and for control over our schools to be returned to the city. In doing so, he took on the responsibility to pay for schools at a time when growing deficits are expected over the next five years. We at PBPC have long argued that the education of Philadelphians shouldn’t be a responsibility of the city alone. Not just Philadelphia but the entire commonwealth suffers because the state share of education funding has fallen from almost 50% to less than 35% of total funding. But while we struggle to encourage Harrisburg to meet its responsibilities to the children of this state, Mayor Kenney is right to prepare the city to increase its spending on education. Indeed, we are so far from providing an adequate education to so many of our kids that even if state… Continue reading
On President Trump’s Infrastructure Proposal
From Third and State, February 13, 2018 The president has put forward a “plan” for infrastructure spending that identifies no new source of funding, that makes unbelievable assumptions about how much state and private spending can be leveraged by a limited amount of new federal spending and that proposes an end-around of environmental regulations in the guise of streamlining those regulations. In response to deep and long ignored needs in Pennsylvania and throughout the country for upgrading our roads, bridges, transit systems, airports and water and sewer works – needs that should be met by new investments that could create tens of thousands good jobs – the president has offered a glittering fantasy with little of the substance necessary to meet those needs. The basic problem with the president’s approach is that he offers a new means of financing infrastructure projects – public private partnerships – when it is funding,… Continue reading