Michael Sauers
February 8, 2025
Governor Shapiro’s budget address muddied the waters as it skirted significant areas of importance and was an attempt at personal aggrandizement. As often happens, it resembled a campaign speech. Mr. Shapiro is running for President.
Upfront I will say that I support his call for getting rid of the Delaware Loophole. Let’s see what happens? I also appreciate his mention of incorporating the Glen Onoko Waterfall Trail into the Lehigh Gorge State Park. Again, let’s see how that goes?
The rhetoric he employed to address the unconstitutional funding paradigm for public education is abusive. Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled it so back in 2023 after the State of Pennsylvania was hauled into court after refusing to deal with it for decades. That’s right, for decades Pennsylvania students have been shortchanged. Under the Court order the Governor and State Legislature were forced to act. They came up with a seven year plan that still does not bring the system into adequacy let alone superiority. At the time Pennsylvania had a 14-15 billion dollar surplus and, as the Governor pointed out, Pennsylvania continues to have billions of dollars in surplus money. Pennsylvania students will continue to be cheated even after the seven year period. There was no mention of a solid timeline for constitutional compliance with the Court ruling. Disgraceful!
There was also no mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars that goes to the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) with no new reporting requirements about who benefits from the programs and students’ educational outcomes. This money goes to help religious and private schools, some of whom have discriminatory practices.
The above scenario fits nicely into Pennsylvania’s attempt to discourage post high school education. They are pushing for 92% of state jobs to be open to people without a college education. This sounds like a dumb down, control program.
Governor Shapiro is a fan of corporate welfare. He doles out millions/billions of dollars to private sector interests that are already profitable and quit capable of raising money for expansion and development. He bragged about putting 1.1 billion new dollars into economic development which he identifies as energy, agriculture, manufacturing, robotics, technology and life sciences. Where is education? Education is the real driver of a robust economy!
Governor Shapiro supports an “all of the above” energy use plan. That is ridiculous. Some of these energy choices, like coal/natural gas/oil are polluting and contribute to climate change which the Governor mentioned once. Nuclear produces serious waste that lasts hundreds/thousands of years. His budget supports carbon capture and hydrogen hubs fueled by natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Where is his emphasis on renewables? You will have to look hard to find them.
His budget supports speeding up the permitting process for large energy development projects while not allowing any funding for citizen groups to research, question, hire experts and, perhaps, oppose projects that will negatively impact their communities. He talks about the Lightening Plan, Speed Act, fast track permitting, lowering corporate net income taxes and other taxes by 10.5 billion by 2029.
On a personal note, I find it highly speciesist to refer to the sale of 200 million eggs to Sanofi Pasteur. The egg industry is cruel beyond words for layers and even more so if you hatch out a male. Of course there is more. Do some research!