Submitted by Maura Donley on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 1:57pm
Pensions
The unfunded liability for state employees and teacher pensions is $41 billion, and if something isn’t done soon we are on the hook for it. The Governor is offering a plan that will almost surely result in a tough political fight because part of it calls for adjusting the pension formulas of those currently employed. There may be no alternative. His budget office says that next fiscal year the costs for pensions will consume 60 percent of all new revenues, money that should be going to core government programs.
Submitted by Maura Donley on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 1:51pm
Health Care
Remarkably some have characterized the Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) as “free” for Pennsylvania because Washington “covers” the initial few years of cost. This, when the money to pay for the expansion still comes from the same pockets, ours, and the commonwealth will end up shouldering most of the costs in the down years anyway.
Submitted by Maura Donley on Wed, 02/27/2013 - 1:48pm
Transportation Funding
Our roads and bridges are not only costing us millions in delays and vehicle repairs but they are dangerous as well. Fifty years is the average age for a Pennsylvania bridge and PennDOT classifies more than 4000 bridges as structurally deficient. These deficiencies cause rerouting, shipping delays, and hazardous situations on a daily basis.
Submitted by Maura Donley on Tue, 01/22/2013 - 5:58pm
The only things standing in the way of the private management of the Pennsylvania Lottery are reviews by the Attorney General, Treasurer, and Auditor General. They each have 30 days to review Governor Tom Corbett’s decision to hand the administration of the Lottery over to Camelot Global Services. Their review is limited to the scope of their offices.
“The Attorney General reviews it for its legality, the Treasurer on its financials,” said Jay Pagni, a spokesman for the Department of General Services. “None can review on policy.”
Submitted by Maura Donley on Wed, 01/09/2013 - 2:13pm
The 2013-14 legislative session, with 23 new lawmakers, began on January 1 under a constitutional requirement that swearing in occur the first Tuesday in January. The new members will have little time to adjust to the rules and routine as they will have to embrace transportation funding, liquor privatization, another tight budget, and we at PMA hope they will tackle key business issues left over from last year.
The EPA is hard at work implementing regulations based on a model that can best be described as smack-down economics. A National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) study says the regulations will create a “ripple effect” through the economy and cost no less than “several million jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars.” In keeping with the spirit of this new economic model, it seems it will accomplish little else.
Submitted by Maura Donley on Tue, 11/13/2012 - 9:52pm
Lawmakers sworn in on January 1st to kick off the 2013-14 legislative session have an opportunity to act with no delay on a pro-growth agenda already vetted by industry, labor, and both political parties. The agenda was approved in August by the Governor’s Manufacturing Advisory Council (GMAC).
Submitted by Maura Donley on Thu, 11/01/2012 - 12:26pm
A new law that will eliminate what the bill’s sponsor calls a “ridiculous amount of paper work,” under the 1978 Steel Products Procurement Act, is a victory for the Pennsylvania Steel Alliance - a management/labor coalition working to keep steel jobs in America.
“We worked very closely with the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. John Baer (R-Lancaster), on this one,” said Chris Masciantonio, co-chair of the Alliance and General Manager, State Government Affairs, US Steel. “It’s a win for us all.”
