PA Public Welfare: The math and the message

There are 40 state agencies and departments in Pennsylvania that require funding in order to operate. These include Education, Economic Development, Public Welfare, the Liquor Control board, Civil Service, Ethics, Veterans Affairs and 33 others.

To operate these agencies, Governor Corbett has established a $63.6 billion dollar budget. The money to fund this budget comes from four different sources–with much of those four sources funded by you, the taxpayer. For the sake of perspective on public welfare, I’d like to break that $63.6 billion dollars down.

$27.3 billion dollars of this budget are funds collected from Pennsylvania taxpayers including state sales tax, state income tax and other taxes. These tax revenues go into what’s called Pennsylvania’s “General Fund.” $11.2 billion dollars of the General Fund is allocated for Public Welfare. That’s 43%.

$4.34 billion dollars comes from collection of other taxes and fees, such as gasoline tax and motor licensing fees. The monies collected from sources like these are part of what is called “Special Funds.” $121.3 million dollars of Special Funds is allocated for Public Welfare. That’s 3%.

$9.8 billion dollars comes from what is called “Other Funds.” “Other Funds” are dedicated for specific programs such as Workers Compensation and Unemployment Compensation. $1.8 billion dollars of Other Funds are dedicated to Public Welfare. That’s 18%.

Finally, some of the money for Pennsylvania’s operating budget comes from the Federal Government or “Federal Funds.” The Federal Government will give $22 billion dollars to Pennsylvania for 2011-12. $14.5 billion of those funds are specifically earmarked for Public Welfare. That’s 70% of the return on your federal tax dollars, going to Public Welfare.

There is great debate over how much each agency should require in funding, and much debate over whether each agency fulfills its mission, whether or not its mission is necessary at all, and whether or not there is waste and abuse within the ranks.

For one single agency, PUBLIC WELFARE, Governor Corbett will allocate 43% of the General Fund, 18% of Other Funds, 3% of Special Funds, and 70% of Federal Funds. That’s 43% of Governor Corbett’s $63.6 billion dollar operating budget, a budget funded by hard-working Pennsylvanians, that is allocated to just one agency.

There are 39 other agencies that do not receive such unprecedented priority, and many would argue that surely on one of these other agencies, perhaps Higher Education, or Economic Development, the priority would be better placed and bring greater return on the hard work that generates all those tax dollars.

Those are the facts. Where my opinion is welcome, I would offer that there is a clear message in these numbers. The message, in my humble opinion, is that toward those who do not demonstrate ability to contribute, the Government communicates an attitude of superiority that suggests these people are worth little, they are “uneducatable” and too stupid to realize their Government is cheating them by appeasing them with meager rations rather than giving a true helping hand. They laugh at these people who think they’re making out on the deal, and in some cases, they laugh even harder at those who think they’re getting one over on the system.

Toward those of us who have demonstrated ability to contribute, the Government communicates an attitude of arrogance and indifference that suggests we are not smart enough to realize our Government has cheated us as well. Rather than assist them in becoming fellow thinkers and contributors, they have insulted and forsaken our fellow citizens and us–and have done so at taxpayer expense. They have saddled on our back the resulting burden which is called “43%,” and they laugh as, like pack mules, we carry the load. I suppose we do look silly.

Mention Public Welfare and you’ll no doubt hear lament about the people who refuse to work, or illegal aliens who collect at the expense of legal citizens who will work. But this is not the real story of Public Welfare. These are just the symptoms.

Yes, people cheat the system, but the biggest, most egregious cheater is the Government who allows it, and their constituents to pay for it, because it’s more convenient than being honest and responsible. To focus collective anger toward those who collect from this bogus system serves only to misdirect the focus and absolve an irresponsible Government. Public Welfare tells a story, not about abuse by the people, but about abuse of the people.

Geist Has A Plan To Fix Infrastructure Funding Problems

Darrin Youker of the Reading Eagle highlights State Representative and Chairman of the House Transportation Committee Rick Geist's (R-PA 79th) plan to fix the transportation funding crisis facing Pennsylvania. In a speech to the Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Geist outlined his plan that included tolling I-95.

Geist, who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said his committee has approved legislation to create public-private partnerships to build and manage the state's highway infrastructure. The bill still needs full House approval, he said.

One road that could see improvement under a public-private partnership is the Schuylkill Expressway, the main artery into downtown Philadelphia, Geist said.

Geist also supports a measure to toll I-95, with the proceeds going to repairs on that highway . Click Here To Read More

Geist says that his plan makes a stronger case for tolling than previous attempts to toll I-80 which was denied by federal transportation regulators. Geist feels that tolling I-95 and using the revenue to fix the 7 billion dollars worth of reparis to the highway would be a great first step in solving our transportation funding needs. In his speech he also outlined plans to promote public/private partnerships to also help reduce costs on other major infrastructure projects.

Uncivil Unions: Thuggery is the main negotiating tool of the Left

Guest Column By Lowman S. Henry

A few short weeks ago the buzzword in American politics was "civility." The mainstream news networks, liberal newspapers, the left-wing blogosphere and their assorted allies were in high dungeon claiming Tea party conservatives and the new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives was responsible for what they viewed as an uncivil tone in the national debate. They even suggested, in some cases stated outright, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by a madman was somehow related to conservative rhetoric.

But, in the past couple of weeks it is the American Left which has come unhinged and engaged in some decidedly uncivil actions. A combination of new Republican majorities in governorships and legislatures across the nation and the inevitable fiscal impact of the recession on state budgets have thrown into reverse gear the gains liberal/progressives made over the past two years.

And they are reacting poorly.

The most visible example of leftist rage has come in the state of Wisconsin where new Governor Scott Walker and a newly empowered majority in the state legislature ended collective bargaining privileges for state employee unions. It was a fiscally necessary action, but the labor unions flew into a rage. This despite the fact comprehensive collective bargaining privileges for public employee unions are far from universal, with workers in 24 states not having them.

In Wisconsin, as with many other northern states, unions were accustomed to winning such fights. This time it was clear they were going to lose. In a childish move state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the repeal of collective bargaining privileges from coming to a vote. Union workers abandoned their jobs to stage a raucous protest at the state capitol.

It would be charitable to describe the union protest as uncivil. The demonstrators were loud, frequently profane, borderline violent and generally unruly. It took days of negotiations to get them to leave the capitol rotunda at night so crews could clean. Contrast their behavior and the mess they left behind with that of Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C. last summer and you get a clear cut picture of how conservatives and liberals conduct themselves at public events.

Wisconsin is not the only state where leftist thugs have behaved inappropriately. In Idaho an education reform bill that would have eliminated tenure and seniority and allowed more charter schools to be established drew the ire of unions. The superintendent of Idaho's public schools, Tom Luna, who championed the reform plan, had his car vandalized. One protestor even showed up at the home of Luna's mother.

Here in Pennsylvania radical environmentalists invaded the offices of former Governor Tom Ridge's consulting firm. Ridge is now a high profile lobbyist for Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies. The protestors were angry over Governor Tom Corbett's refusal to place a severance tax on gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale reserve. Despite the fact Ridge is a private citizen and his office private property; they stormed the place demanding to talk with the former governor.

The conservative media has made much of this wave of uncivil behavior, but the establishment media has been largely silent. Imagine if you will that conservatives behaved in such a manner. If a deranged shooter who is a devotee of Karl Marx somehow unleashed liberal finger waggling, such behavior as exhibited by liberal activists by conservatives would have brought about a hail storm of condemnation.

Unfortunately we can expect more uncivil behavior from labor unions, radical environmentalists and other components of the Left. Republicans at the state level are grappling with massive budget deficits brought about by years of overspending and by the lingering economic recession. It is clear to voters that the current levels of public spending cannot be maintained, and the policies that created growing deficits must be reversed.

Given that labor is a substantial part of any state budget it is inevitable that public employees will have to join their private sector counterparts in paying more for health care and other benefits, contribute more to their pension plans, and do more work with fewer workers. Collective bargaining stands in the way of accomplishing those goals, so it will be a target in more and more states as the fiscal year progresses.

So far, unions and their allies have not handled the situation in a civil manner. Few expect they ever will, and fewer still expect they will be held to the same standards of public behavior as conservatives.

Lowman S. Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal. His email address is lhenry@lincolninstitute.org.

Is Governor Corbett Embracing Cronyism?

The Courier Times News published a great editorial today sharply criticizing some of Governor Corbett's administrative appointments. Corbett has looked to several political insiders, campaign contributors, and even family members of his campaign's inner circle in the case of the PA Turnpike to fill administrative vacancies.

From the The newly named head of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, for example, falls into that category. Roger E. Nutt is the commission's new chief executive officer, a job that pays $196,700 a year. If the name sounds familiar that's because Nutt, 70, is the father of Brian Nutt, who ran Corbett's campaign for governor and was later named the governor's chief of staff, a position he left for a job with a political consulting firm. Brian Nutt remains Corbett's chief political adviser. Click Here To Read More

The editorial rightly asks the question why someone who as Attorney General spent so much time fighting Harrisburg corruption highlighted by the convictions in the "Bonusgate" scandal, would revert back to business as usual when it comes to appointments to high level government positions as Governor?

I've stated before that despite Governor Corbett's anti government corruption crusade as Attorney General, he has always been a Harrisburg insider. He has never ruffled any feathers until the "Bonusgate" scandal.

Corbett was no where to be found during the Pay Raise scandal of July 2005 when state lawmakers passed pay increases for state lawmakers, judges, and top executive-branch at 2:00 AM in the morning without public review. He never questioned the unconstitutional "unvouchered expenses" trumped up by then Chief Justice Ralph Cappy. As the Commonwealth's chief lawyer representing the people, Corbett let us down then and it is not a surprise to me at least that he is hooking up his inner circle as Governor. Continuing the tradition of business as usual as Governor.

De-fund NPR & Planned Parenthood

De-funding NPR or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), since it is really the true corporate arm of NPR, along with Planned Parenthood, are logical since it is seriously objectionable to require taxpayers to fund organizations they find morally repugnant. More than that!

The US Constitution has no provision(s) within to legally justify such funding. Yes, there are probably 'conservative' causes that also are not mentioned in the constitution & yes, they too should probably be de-funded. Whats good for the goose is surely good for the gander. No problem here. Would mean less money spent!

In addition, the General Accounting Office (GAO) also recently released a report defining duplicate federal departments, agencies, bureau's, panels, etc., costing taxpayers over $200 billion. That number is astonishing to me.

By eliminating the duplicate agencies, the reduction in our budget deficit would be more positively affected than even the recently proposed $61 billion dollar federal budget expenditure cuts proposed by Republicans & summarily rejected by Democrats seeking, among other frivolous expenditures, to preserve taxpayer funding for Cowboy Poetry Festivals in Nevada!.

Obtuse is the only descriptive word that I can come up with. A $61 billion dollar reduction was rejected when we know of over $200 billion dollars in duplicative waste, simply provides additional justification to taxpayers that their government may no longer represent, the people.

The fact that continuing resolutions are needed to keep the federal government open for business, since there is not & has not been an approved budget for nearly two years now, demonstrates to the public that concentrated federal government, affected by suspiciously influential special interest groups, is as ineffective and potentially destructive, as the nations founders suspected it would be.

Obviously, this is why the founders did not want a strong central government.

Democrat wins special election for O'Pake Senate seat

There's a reason Pennsylvania's 11th State Senate District has been represented by a Democrat since it was created in 1961.

It's one of the most heavily Democratic legislative districts in Pennsylvania.

Democratic Sen. Mike O'Pake first won the Senate seat in 1972 and had two more years left in his current term when he died Dec. 27 at age 70 from complications following heart surgery.

Democrat Judy Schwank, a former two-term Berks County commissioner, won the special election Tuesday to finish O'Pake's term, with 20,124 votes to Republican challenger Larry Medaglia's 14,794.

The 11th District includes the City of Reading, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 5-1 margin. The most recent voter registration numbers show 82,727 registered Democrats to 48,674 Republicans in the 11th District.

Even with Schwank's victory, Republicans hold a 30-20 majority in the state Senate. Republicans also control the state House and the governor's mansion.

Some State Budget Debate Thoughts From Right Field

Here at PennPatriot Blog our revenues were down about 6,000 in fiscal year 2010 and we will be facing a 8,000 dollar projected budget shortfall in 2011. Mmmm......What should we do?

1. We could increase spending in 2011 so we can rack up even more debt. Yeah groovy!!

2. We could borrow more money to pay off the debt we already have thus increasing our interest payments and again end up increasing our overall debt.

3. We could renegotiate the terms of our debt forcing our lenders to extending the number of years we have to payback our debt passing the debt onto future blog contributors. Now that is an idea.

4. We could increase our revenues here at PennPatriot Blog if only we didn't have to pay more school property taxes, county property taxes, local municipal property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, local head tax, emergency services taxes, and gas taxes. Oh I forgot to add in the burdensome government regulation, insurance requirements, ObamaCare costs, and other government fees which also impact our bottom line.

5. We could move our operations to Florida where there is no income tax. That's and idea. Fun in the Sun!!

6. We could move our operations to a Right-To-Work state like Texas but then our union contributors and local news sources would march in the streets.

7. We could cut spending and asked our contributors to fork over more cash for expenses. Um that's not going to happen!

8. We we could stop blogging all together because it is too time consuming and no one cares what the hell we have to say anyhow!

Please read these options carefully and then think about our overall budget crisis here in Pennsylvania. Just a bunch of nonsense.

Maybe our elected officials at all levels of government have not learned anything from the election results in November. God help our Pennsylvania businesses and those state lawmakers who fully understand that we must cut government spending to get our economy moving again.

We must hold elected officials accountable

Guest Column By Steve Vogel

Ask not what they can do for us, but rather what we will do for them.

This should be the slogan of all politicians seeking to run for office or re-election. They all talk a good game, but bottom line is “it appears they are looking out only for themselves.”

With the federal deficit huge, I thought, maybe, if all the senators and congressmen had to pay more for their benefits it might help reduce it. So I inquired from Congressman Joe Pitts what do they pay for their benefits! I asked not once but twice and guess what? I did not get a response.

Did we not elect him? And yet he won’t answer a simple question. That to me says a lot and trust me, Mr. Pitts when up for re-election will not get my vote. We put them in office and then they do as they damn well please. They take trips and when they get caught say, “I was going to pay for it.” Sure you were.

If you worked for a company, you could lose your job for taking stuff from vendors, but we continue to let our elected officials do as they want. The answer is get rid of them and put someone else in and if they aren’t accountable get rid of them.

If we are going to improve this state and this country, we need to hold our elected officials accountable and we do not. Counties, states and the federal government are all operating in the red and it is the person who can least afford it that is forced to suffer. Wake up, people, and stand up for our country.

Listen to the song by Sugarland, “Standup.” It says it all. We need to take our heads out of the sand before it is too late. If you disagree with me, e-mail me and tell me why I am wrong.

Don't blame labor unions for budget woes

Guest Column By Jim Foster

These are troubled times for all levels of government.

Federal, state and local leaders are grappling with budget deficits. A significant part of the problem is public pensions whose obligations have not been fully funded.

Everyone agrees that this is a problem.

What gives me heartburn is the constant chorus telling us that this problem is caused solely by greedy labor unions.

Blaming unions for the current fiscal crisis seems to me a bit like George Steinbrenner, late owner of the New York Yankees, blaming Alex Rodriguez for negotiating the largest contract in baseball history.

There was no gun at George’s head as he agreed to take on A-Rod’s deal. But to hear some politicians and tea partiers these days, the unions were wielding automatic weapons when they negotiated the public sector pension deals.

The truth is that these pensions were arrived at fair and square through a series of negotiations between unions representing employees and elected officials representing us, the taxpayers. Both sides had legal representation and knew exactly what they were doing.

The problems arose after the negotiations. These pensions created liabilities. Government representatives were supposed to fund these obligations. They simply didn’t do it.

It is morally reprehensible for our officials to now blame the unions for the terrible sin of negotiating a deal and then expecting government to live up to it.

It is generally true that public sector pensions are better than those in the private sector. But again, is A-Rod to blame because he was able to negotiate a better deal than his fellow athletes? Another fact is that private sector pensions used to be better than they are now.

But during the past generation, retirement benefits in the private sector have declined significantly. Many companies have converted their defined benefit pension plans, where the company takes more risk, to defined contribution plans, where the employees take most of the risk. This hasn’t happened as much in the public sector because more public employees are represented by unions who haven’t allowed this.

Financial planners have been advising us for years to prepare for our retirement. That is what the public sector unions did for their members. Unions made sure that their employees had adequate pensions. In many cases, unions agreed to give up larger salary increases in return for better pensions. Now, in the fun house mirror world of today’s politics, they are the bad guys.

Do I detect a little pension envy here?

Here’s a concrete example. I worked more than 30 years in the private sector. My wife worked about the same length of time as a public school employee. We have graduate degrees. I consistently earned a paycheck of about one third more than her. But now she enjoys a pension benefit that is about three times more than mine.

In my opinion, that is because her pensions were negotiated through a collective bargaining process, and mine were not.

So, whom should we blame for the fix we are in?

I say it is the politicians who agreed to these pensions without adequately funding them.

So, hey, President Reagan, President George W. Bush and Congress — why did you cut taxes on the rich without first funding government pensions and our infrastructure needs?

On the state level, hey, Gov. Ridge, Gov. Rendell and state legislators — why did you agree to the pensions and early buyouts for state workers without providing adequate funding for them?

Ultimately, though, I think we all need to look in the mirror. We let our politicians get away with the charade of inadequate funding.

They told us there was a free lunch, and we were foolish enough to believe it. The most we can accuse the public sector unions of is being good negotiators.

We will all need to make sacrifices to fix our budgetary problems. However, it is a mistake to blame the unions.

Corbett takes poetic license with speech

Guest Column By Christopher Orchard

The Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley said that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world. If he was alive today, he might have been surprised to find that politicians are pushing back and appointing themselves the unacknowledged poets of their own domain.

Last Tuesday, Gov. Tom Corbett headlined a political poetry slam when he evoked William Wordsworth and his contemporaries in his budget address.

There is nothing wrong with using poetry to add gravitas to a speech or displaying poetic cadence in the speech itself.

But politicians should not use verse irresponsibly or insert poetry without context. Poetry sound bites can backfire. January news reports from California showed various lawmakers there misquoted the famous line from S. T. Coleridge’s poem “The Ancient Mariner” that says “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” in talking about water shortages facing their state.

Quoting that line is ironic because in the poem the lack of fresh drinking water is a punishment afflicted on the mariner for killing an Albatross. So rather than touch on water shortages, as the legislators intended, it actually touches on mankind killing endangered animals.

And two years ago, the former governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, peppered his meandering reflections on his political misfortunes with quotes from various poets such as Tennyson and Kipling.

Blagojevich vowed to remain in office in the face of criminal and impeachment proceedings, quoting Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” which includes the lines: “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you ...¤ “ He left out the last line of the stanza: “And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.”

So in quoting from — but misreading — a snippet from a William Wordsworth poem, our own governor has good company.

We might expect politicians to feel poetic in inaugural addresses rather than budget speeches. The conceptions of poetry feel more appropriate when you are laying out a vision for a state’s future than when you are referencing statistics and crunching numbers. Corbett obviously thought it appropriate.

In his speech, he uses two lines from Wordsworth’s poem “The World is Too Much With Us.” Those lines — “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” — were cited as poetic support for his talk about austerity and fiscal responsibility that Pennsylvanians need to embrace in the coming year. So far, so good.

However, what is ironic is that it was inserted in a speech lauded as pro-business, whereas the poem’s message is passionately environmental and anti-capitalist. Surrounded by the factories and other industries, Wordsworth was appalled, like many of his contemporaries, by the negative impact of capitalism on society.

In particular, Wordsworth was concerned about how man had become removed from his connection with Nature, to the extent, as he says later in the poem, “ Little we see in Nature that is ours.”

In a poem that regrets the way that man has become spiritually and emotionally disconnected from his natural environment, it is as much about how we are deaf to its magnificence and indifferent to its presence around us: “It moves us not.” Without this empathy, we exploit it.

Put Wordsworth in a time machine and transport him to Pennsylvania in 2011 and the sentiments of the poem would be pertinent as a critical voice concerning the negative impact of Marcellus Shale. What is ironic is that Wordsworth would be a more appropriate writer for a Democrat to quote, not a Republican presenting his first budget address.

Citation is not a neutral game in a public forum. Your choice of writer can signal all sorts of subtle associations, but you have to be sure the image fits your purpose. And that rule applies here.

Corbett also spoke about the intentions of several Romantic poets to build a utopian community on the banks of the Susquehanna River. This is true. Robert Southey and S.T. Coleridge discussed the possibilities on many of their walks together and approached random people to solicit their opinion on their plans for America.

And Corbett also is right that the concept never materialized. The poets hesitated because they were worried they would be exploited by shady businessmen and sold a bill of goods that did not match the description of the Pennsylvanian landscape.

They chose Wales instead. But Southey’s intent in 1794 was to establish a society equally ruled by all “where possessions were held in common.”

If they were visitors to the state capital in 2011, none of these poets would have seen eye to eye with the new governor. I might be wrong, but I do not think the pro-business governor has a socialist commonwealth in mind for his people.

I always tell my students to pay attention to the titles of poems because they frequently anticipate the theme that follows.

If the governor really intended the poem as a message about Pennsylvania’s financial condition, then to accept that ‘The World is too much with us” can only mean that we ignore all financial concerns, let alone focus on a budget.

Poets can be politicians and politicians can be poets, but poetry itself can only be effective if you know how to use it.

Christopher Orchard is an associate professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Seek sensible solutions to Marcellus tax question

Guest Column By Clifford Rieders

The debate rages as to whether Marcellus Shale drillers should pay a severance tax to the government.
The taxers say that the drillers are depleting the land and therefore ought to pay money representing a percentage of what they sever from the land because the asset will one day be gone.

The no-taxers say we need to incubate the industry to maximize the number of jobs and economic growth the drillers and their compatriots will bring. No-taxers point out that even though 38 other states have a severance tax, virtually every state that has gas in the ground, some of those states have a lower total tax when you count levies such as income and sales taxes.

Who is right? We can argue about the long-term cost of drilling as opposed to the long-term value and economic development. We can argue as to whether a severance tax would be lost in the general coffers of a money-hungry commonwealth or whether it would be used wisely to remediate damage caused by gas drilling and its associated fracking.

If there is no severance tax, would the economic activity be so much more as to make up for the cost of drilling? No analysis available to the public proves that argument. Do the states that tax oil and gas taken from the land wisely use that money? It depends on the state and who is in power.

Landowners who have gas removed from their property and benefit by royalties may or may not invest locally. However, from a tax point of view, the land depreciates as the gas is removed. This "depletion allowance" is a tax benefit to landowners by virtue of the theory that their land becomes less valuable as the mineral or other substance is removed. Therefore landowners can reduce the taxes they pay on the royalties by the extent to which the gas goes bye-bye.

That would not be so bad if the gas drillers paid taxes on all the money they make. Gas drillers also benefit by our corporate-cozy tax code. From their income, the gas drillers can deduct the cost of searching for the gas, drilling, research and development, tools, parts, equipment, employees, and royalty payments to landowners. The tax advantages to drillers and landowners are second to none in the tax code.

Considering that both landowner and driller make money from the activity and are afforded considerable tax savings, the question is properly asked as to who should pay the bill from any problems caused by the drilling. It seems as though those who are making money off the activity should be putting a little something aside for our grandchildren, who will have to deal with any problems caused by gas removal.

One good idea that has been floated is local taxation, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suggested that the quirky doctrine of pre-emption prevents local municipalities from protecting themselves.

What about local excess user fees charged by school districts, social service agencies and municipalities for use of their facilities by drillers and owners? This can be based upon amortization or depreciation of the particular facility.

For example, a road would ordinarily be built so it would have to be resurfaced once every 10 years. But now because of the use of heavy-duty drilling rigs, the road must be replaced after five years and the projected cost of that activity could be levied against the users. The same thing could be done for other services provided by local government as demands of the burgeoning industry increase.

User fees have been a commonly accepted way of financing everything from museums to court systems.

The problem is that we spend more time arguing over philosophy and dogma than trying to wrap our arms around solutions to imminently solvable problems.

We need to put aside the Republican-Democratic schism and focus upon the cost to our local agencies by virtue of the gas-drilling cornucopia. Once we get a good handle on those costs, we must be willing to examine what is driving those costs and how best to address them without throwing out the baby with the bath water. Problems are solvable, even if attitudes are not.

Clifford Rieders is past president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.

‘Right-to-work’ needed now in Pennsylvania

Guest Column By Lowman S. Henry

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has chosen to fight a budget battle and engage in a playing field-altering confrontation with his state’s labor unions at the same time. Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett has decided to fight the budget battle first. But, to ultimately fix the structural budget deficit, he must also fundamentally alter the commonwealth’s relationship with public sector labor unions.

Unions in Wisconsin have capitulated to Gov. Walker on many of the financial issues involved in their standoff. But, they have dug in over so-called collective bargaining rights. That is because collective bargaining by public sector unions is what gives them an unfair advantage in contract negotiations.

It is wrong to think of collective bargaining as a right. It is not a right. It is a privilege. It is a privilege that essentially gives unions the ability to dictate the terms of their own contracts. Gov. Walker understands the power of collective bargaining which is why he wants to limit such privileges to give state, county and municipal governments a more level playing field.

But, let’s spot the unions a big one. Let’s not talk about taking away their collective bargaining privileges. Instead, let us simply demand equal rights for everyone. Since the unions are so vocal in support of their “rights,” we should expect they would be amenable to support and honor the rights of others.

The next battle should be to give all Pennsylvanians the right to work. Gov. Tom Corbett has said he would sign a “Right-to-Work” law if it made it to his desk. Republicans hold large majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. Since the GOP is supposedly the party of individual rights and free enterprise, there will never be a better time for passing a “Right-to-Work” law.

Simply put a “Right-to-Work” law would give every Pennsylvanian the right to hold whatever job he or she chooses without being compelled to join or pay so-called “fair share” fees to a labor union. Compulsory unionism is un-American on its face, and on the practical level, makes Penn’s Woods uncompetitive when it comes to attracting new businesses and jobs.

Republican leadership in the General Assembly, often elected with thousands in union campaign contributions, has been reluctant to support or bring a “Right-to-Work” law to the floor for a vote. But, Pennsylvanians are angry at state government overspending and the rampant corruption, which has plagued the Legislature. Voters and taxpayers are demanding action; not just Band Aid fixes, but real structural reforms.

There is strong public support for enactment of a “Right-to-Work” law. Over a 16-year period the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research has asked Pennsylvania voters whether or not they support a “Right-to-Work” law. They have consistently supported such a law by a two to one margin.

In the most recent poll 56 percent backed a “Right-to-Work” law, while just 30 percent are in opposition. In surveys of business owners, enactment of a “Right-to-Work” law is viewed as a necessary structural change to make Pennsylvania competitive with other states.

Gov. Corbett should give unions an option: Accept enactment of a “Right-to-Work” law, or cede your collective bargaining privileges. Unions, of course, will accept neither. But the time has come to stop letting labor unions —which represent a diminished and shrinking percentage of the work force — dictate the terms of public policy.

It is also time for the Republicans who now control state government to stand up and be counted. Last November taxpayers voted for change. The GOP was given the power to enact change. If that power is not put to use, then Republicans will have no argument for being returned to office the next time they face voters.

Labor unions argue they have the right to band together and bargain collectively. If that is true so is the reverse: Individuals have the right to work without being forced against their will to join or pay fees to a union to which they do not wish to belong.

It is time to level the playing field.

Lowman S. Henry is chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal. His email address is lhenry@lincolninstitute.org.