Dear Constituent:

I want to update you regarding my views of the budget Governor Corbett proposed yesterday.

There were components of it I agreed with, such as retaining the film tax credit which is so important to our district, and emphasizing the need to stop incarcerating so many people, however much of it was very disturbing.

There were specific budget cuts which I think will be very detrimental to the people of Pennsylvania. Perhaps the starkest was the proposal to reduce funding for higher education by more than 50%. This will be devastating to important institutions of higher learning such as Penn State, Temple and Pitt. There will be dramatic tuition increases of up to 25%, along with a reduction in the total number of students who can be educated and the potential elimination of entire departments and the closing of numerous campuses.

The proposal also contained an extreme reduction in the state's commitment to elementary education. In recent years we have finally started funding our public schools, including our poorer schools adequately. As a result, we have seen dramatic progress. Test scores are up and Pennsylvania is ranked #1 as the most improved educational system in the nation. We are abandoning this approach and abandoning our efforts to bring distressed schools up to par. Governor Corbett proposes eliminating block grants which pay for kindergarten, tutors and computers for our kids.

There are many other specific additional cuts which are too numerous to describe in detail in this e-mail. Suffice it to say that we are eliminating hundreds of mental health workers, greatly reducing money for women's health care and mortgage assistance and have already ended the adultBasic program, throwing 42,000 Pennsylvanians off of their health insurance.

Still, the most disturbing part of the budget is the distribution of pain contained within it. Governor Corbett correctly noted that we are in tough economic times. He rightly said that we all have to sacrifice. But then he exempted entire sections of the population from his call to sacrifice. Poor people, teachers, school children, the mentally ill and sick people are all asked to sacrifice greatly. But big corporations and the wealthiest among us are not asked to contribute one penny towards the deficit.

On the contrary, despite a huge deficit, Governor Corbett found the money to create hundreds of millions of dollars of new corporate tax breaks. He also proposed giving these same corporations huge new breaks in the legal liability system. So we are not only balancing the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable, we are also placing upon them the additional burdens of more expensive gifts to those who need them the least.

Finally, the Governor also issued a policy statement along with his budget. In it was the following paragraph:

"Regulatory Reform: Friction-free processes for government interaction with job creators are critical to maintain economic momentum and competitiveness. State government needs to be a partner with job creators. To address the length of time agencies take to act on permits and eliminate permit backlogs, PennDOT and DEP have begun auditing and assessing all of their permit processes to make them more responsive to the needs of job creators. In addition, the DCED secretary is empowered to expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where the creation of jobs may be impacted."

What the governor is suggesting is having our regulatory agencies abandon their regulatory role in protecting the health and safety of Pennsylvanians and instead cozy up to the very entities they are supposed to be regulating. It's like saying that an umpire should focus on helping "run-producers" and start calling balls and strikes in a way that enables hitters to not strike out as much and hit more home runs.

This is particularly egregious with regards to the DEP's new power to "expedite" any permit where "job creation may be impacted". Since you can always argue that anything that costs a "job-creator" money, (such as cleaning up pollution for example) will impact "job creation", the DEP can now, without restriction "expedite" (whatever that means) any permit application. Presumably this expedited process will mean less actual investigation into the environmental impact of whatever the "job-creator" wants to do.

This is outrageous. The DEP's job is to protect the environment. That's why it's called the "Department of Environmental Protection" and not the "Department of Helping Polluters Make Money". I just thought everyone should be aware of this.

Of course, none of this has passed yet. I will keep you posted as events unfold. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at any time.

For more information about the budget, please check out the latest edition of my podcast on www.senatorleach.com.

^ return to top