PENN LIVE OP-ED: … The budget secretary identified public welfare as a cost driver. What he failed to explain was that if Corbett had decided to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), billions of federal dollars would have come into the state and there would have been $500 million in direct budget savings this year…
A modest natural gas severance tax, one that would not stifle the industry’s capital investment in this state, would have generated much needed additional funding over the past four years to help support our school districts and replenish state coffers…
Moreover, [Budget Director Charles] Zogby lauded the governor’s compliance with a no-tax pledge made long ago to a Washington lobbyist while ignoring the fact that the administration’s failure to properly fund public education caused 75 percent of the state’s 500 local school districts to significantly raise local property taxes… (more)
