With the Corbett Administration’s
typical impeccable timing – the day following my blog post last week
questioning where Sen. Toomey’s new found outrage regarding Pennsylvanians’
health insurance was when the governor was kicking 41,000 working adults off adultBasic;
removing 88,000 kids from Medical Assistance; or his denying 500,000+ residents
health care at all; not to be outdone—Gov. Corbett’s Insurance Commissioner,
Michael Consedine issued a letter, saying both he and the governor “…are deeply
troubled by the flawed launch of the federally-facilitated marketplace…”
Consedine goes on to say his
department has received over 100 complaints from residents.
Well, we already know that
the Corbett administration doesn’t have much concern for the impact its
policies have had on the health care of over 600,000 (and that’s a conservative
estimate) Pennsylvanians.
But Consedine’s letter
reminded me of another letter I received last month (Oct. 29) from Labor and
Industry’s deputy secretary for compensation and insurance regarding the
efforts L&I was making to correct its own flawed launch, and that they are
working “diligently to resolved system defects, clean up inconsistent data, and
implement improvements.”
So it turns out the rocky
launch of health care exchange under Obamacare, which Pennsylvania like dozens
of other states, opted to let the federal government operate is not unlike what
Pennsylvania’s own Workers' Compensation Program's website encountered in addition to problems it's phone line had last year.
The difference is scale.
While healthcare.gov is tasked
with shepherding millions of Americans through the process of purchasing health
care, Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Comp system deals with a fraction of that.
So before Gov. Corbett and
his minions cast stones at a program aimed at fundamentally improving the
health of our nation, perhaps they should consider Corbett’s own imperfections.
Last week while federal HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius,
underwent another round of mainly disingenuous moral outrage from congressmen
and women criticizing the implementation of a plan they been opposing the
implementation of for three years, our state’s junior senator, Pat
Toomey offered the evidence he’s been hearing from some Pennsylvanians.
No doubt the stories Toomey cited are real; one woman he
spoke of is even from Lancaster County. But I find Sen. Toomey’s outrage
misplaced and poorly-timed.
See, I didn’t hear a peep from the newly-elected senator in
2011 when Gov. Corbett decided his first action as governor should be the elimination
adultBasic -- which if you remember was the low cost health care plan,
covering for over 40,000 working Pennsylvanians. Or a year later when the Insurance Department
reported that 40% of those kicked off adultBasic and forced to sign up for new coverage that cost them
more; or when 88,000
kids were kicked off Medical Assistance.
Nor have I heard him call on the governor to expand
Medicaid, which would be a way to cover over a half million Pennsylvania
residents and the easiest way to shrink the list of uninsured Pennsylvania’s by
over 50%.
If Pat Toomey (and others) were actually for covering more
Pennsylvanians and stimulating job growth in the Commonwealth he’d join with
the rest of us calling on Gov. Corbett to expand Medicaid.
While Sen. Toomey was admonishing Sebelius on Capitol Hill,
PA’s other Senator
Bob Casey was calling on Gov. Corbett to accept Medicaid Expansion, like
the governors of Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan and Arizona (see where I’m going
here) have.
Sadly, Casey’s request will likely fall on deaf ears, as
Gov. Corbett is busy on a 10 day tour of Pennsylvania in an attempt to rewrite
his abysmal record of governing over the past 3 years.
With
Labor Day behind us, we can etch another relaxing summer free of controversy in
our memories and gear up for a productive autumn legislative session with most
of Pennsylvania's most pressing issues already resolved through the deft leadership
of the Corbett administration in its first 33 months. All we need to do now is
fine tune the machine of prosperity. (The drop from 7th in job creation to 49th
was part of the plan to make our eventual emergence as #1 even more impressive.
Although it may occur long after he’s been booted from office, he will lay
claim to the accomplishment now).
Look-
there is more state money being spent on education than ever before, and the
state has made sure that local districts have held the line on taxes while
securing smaller class sizes, higher test scores, and expanding curriculum
offerings. More and more kids are performing better at cyber charter schools
and its saving taxpayers millions because the tuition is free.
Pennsylvanians
are going to work in record numbers, and not just at the minimum wage jobs they
found when their unemployment was cut -- these are family sustaining jobs with
healthcare benefits, a defined pension and generous vacation time. Things are
so good, that workers are complaining that the prevailing wage should be
scrapped in favor of higher wages being offered in the open market.
The
Commonwealth’s few remaining working poor (so few that it’s difficult to find
them these days) have access to affordable healthcare without resorting to
Medicaid expansion, and polls show that an overwhelming majority of the
residents are happy to send their federal tax dollars to expand Medicaid in other
states where they aren't fortunate enough to have a governor with the sense to hesitate
on Obamacare.
The
extensions for the potential sale of the lottery have also worked like a charm.
The extra time has allowed 3 new bidders to enter the fray and the free market
has produced a new bid that is more than double the original offer.
The
impending passage of liquor privatization is a mere formality now that the
details of the new plan that will make alcohol available everywhere in the
state, including vending machines on college campuses! Through a deal brokered
by the governor himself (another notch in his legendary prowess as a
dealmaker), distilleries have agreed to sell liquor to mom and pop operations
at the same price the state used to get. In exchange, mom and pop operations
have agreed to sell liquor at cost, and since there is already a surplus in
education funding, the state has agreed to cut liquor taxes by 50%, meaning the
consumer can now buy liquor for about the same price as their favorite mixers.
In
a quirky twist of fate, even though manmade climate change doesn’t exist, the
prediction of unseasonably warm winters in the future has resulted in a
reevaluation of Pennsylvania's roads and bridges and found that since there is
no expected “freeze-thaw” cycle for the foreseeable future, the roads and
bridges are good to go for at least another 5 years -- maybe even 10 -- if the
GOP-controlled House and Senate can push through legislation banning people
from voting while allowing a governor to serve 3 terms.
In
fact things are going so swimmingly that Grover Norquist has finally conceded
that the Marcellus Shale fee is so paltry it should no longer be considered a
tax.
And
lastly, a new report by the Dept. of Revenue states that 70% of "C"
corps paying $0 is just not acceptable - thus effective immediately the Sec. of
Revenue will use the power he’s been granted to waive all taxes on the
remaining 30% of multi-national corps that pay anything at all!
People give Gov. Corbett a hard time for a lot of
(well-deserved) reasons.Sure, there’s
the clockwork regularity of putting his foot in his mouth (Latinos, women can
close their eyes during ultrasounds, now gay Pennsylvanians have been comparedto children); the rapid turnover of Cabinet Secretaries (these people are even
leaving before being confirmed!); yeah he didn’t get any of his self-proclaimed
priorities done by his self-proclaimed deadline (transportation, liquor
privatization, pensions); and wow, those poll numbers -- so low they could double and 1/2 of
Pennsylvanians still wouldn’t think he should be reelected.
But I’ll hand it to the Gov. Corbett, he sends out
optimistic emails when most people would be depressed (I guess a South Carolina
beach house helps!).
Wednesday (surely, while working from his oceanfront patio refreshed
by a gentle sea breeze and a peach wine cooler [likely bought at Charleston’s
Total Wines]) Gov. Corbett sent out an email proclaiming how impressive his
role has been in Pennsylvania’s recovery.
The
email said:
The commonwealth has
added back more than 70% of the jobs lost during the recession, with the
majority of that gain occurring during the Corbett administration.
But his claims and explanations aren’t quite
accurate (although to be fair, I hear most of his fact-checkers are busy
vetting new administration officials).Corbett also said that “Since January 2011, Pennsylvania has created
more than 130,000 private sector jobs, our unemployment rate is the lowest it
has been since the recession, and the number of people working, at just over 6
million, is at its highest since April 2008.”
For some perspective, over 87,000 jobs were
created in the final 12 months of the Rendell administration; and according to
the Keystone Research Center’s analysis, only 86,600 jobs were created in the
first 30 months of the Corbett
administration.
Put another way, the state recorded
as many jobs in the first full year after the recession as it has in the subsequent
two and a half years. Check my
math, but it seems like Corbett can only take credit for 48% of jobs created –
which is not a majority.
Gov. Corbett was criticized last month for using some
less-than-accurate jobs numbers, and since that criticism he’s only inflated them further.Not to mention his claims are disingenuous,
in that he doesn’t mention the 45,000 family-sustaining, public sector jobs
lost during his tenure.
Maybe
the governor is including the 40,000 transportation jobs that would have been
created if the GOP had passed a transportation bill; or the tens of thousands
of jobs that would be created if PA expanded Medicaid; or by reinstating the
20,000 education jobs lost due to his budget cuts; or the jobs saved by filling
the posts of disgruntled employees’ in the administration; or hiring a single
Latino. At this point I’m sure the governor is focused on only one job – his.
It’s
been a week of historic court decisions – and not just in Washington. Earlier
this week, yet another of the Corbett/Turzai–led cabal’s milestone policies was
determined by Commonwealth Court to violate the state Constitution. This time
it was the Human Services Block
Grant
program.
Last
year’s pilot program, described by GOP leaders as giving counties “flexibility”
to spend human services money where they believe it is most needed (with the
added bonus of having their budgets slashed 10 percent), evidently was so
flexible in its interpretation of state law that it went outside the bounds of
the constitution.
It’s
easy to lose track of which GOP policies are under court review at any given
time since so many laws signed by Gov. Tom Corbett (ehem, former Attorney
General –so I mustknow the law) end up
there.
And
let’s not forget the ongoing hot potato plan to hand over control
of our billion dollars in revenue-generating state Lottery to a foreign country
which would be permitted to change the gaming environment in the Commonwealth
with no oversight or run it into the ground and give it back to us (at a price)
with no repercussions, which was rejected by current PA
Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
Perhaps
if the GOP would just take a second to listen to Democrats upon occasion they could
prevent future carpal tunnel syndrome in the governor’s bill- signing hand, because
during floor debate for both Act 13 and Voter ID, we questioned the
constitutionality. I hate to say “we told you so,” but “we told you so.”
I
do have to hand it to the GOP, because they seem to have a laser beam focus on spurring
job growth in the legal sector.
Corbett’s
office alone is spending unspecified millions of dollars on outside law firms
(from Baltimore and New
York)
to handle these issues – at a time when the governor has been crying wolf about
sorting out “must haves from nice
to haves.”
However
court scrutiny is nothing new to Gov. Corbett because remember as Grand Poobah
Attorney General a whistleblower case was brought against him in federal court alleging
he terminated two employees for having the audacity to call for an independent
investigation into some AG office operations. The court dismissed one count of the
suit, but before closing the case said two counts are viable in the appropriate
state court.
…there
was also the time he joined 12 other attorneys general on a lawsuit regarding
Obamacare, the same Obamacare that was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2012.
But
we know health care has never been Corbett’s forte because his first action as
governor was to dismantle adultBasic, the health care
program serving 40,000 working Pennsylvanians, paid for partially using funds
from PA’s share of the federal Tobacco Settlement and by program enrollees. Corbett
then used the tobacco funds for other non-health related issues and that was
found to be unconstitutional by a
Commonwealth Court
judge just a few months ago.
Of
course the GOP’s geography aptitude may be called into question too, as their
first attempt at redistricting maps made history by being the first to be
rejected as unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in 50 years!
And
just this month, Gov. Corbett’s flipflop on the Jerry Sandusky-induced NCAA
sanctions demonstrates his misunderstanding of the law. After originally
accepting the “serious penalties” as part of the “corrective process…,” he reversed his
stance and opted to sue the NCAA. That
lawsuit has been dismissed by a federal judge,
calling it a “fairly easy decision to dismiss.”
Just
so I can say “I told you so” – my guess that if the Corbett/Turzai cabal is
able to convince enough lawmakers to go along with their liquor privatization
and pension schemes to get them to the governor’s desk, they’ll end up in the
courts as well with similar consequences.
When the GOP claims to have put more state funds into education than ever before, check out the red line on the chart above. The GOP has put marginal funds into ONE education budget line item, while ELIMINATING others.
Gov.
Corbett has once again demonstrated his complete lack of understanding and
disrespect for Pennsylvanians. Rather than admit that policies like cutting
school funding, limiting access
to health care and failing to invest in transportation infrastructure have
failed to energize hiring in our Commonwealth, he'll lay the blame with people
who receive busy
signals when they call to apply for unemployment compensation, have had to
reapply for Medicaid coverage for their children after they were erroneously
eliminated, or waiting in line for hours trying to get a photo ID that the
GOP told them they'd need in order to vote.
Gov.
Corbett's job numbers speak for themselves. Before Gov. Corbett took office
Pennsylvania repeatedly had an unemployment rate below the national average,
and was an admirable 7th in job growth -- now we're
49th. His administration boasted that Pennsylvania has recovered
50 percent of pre-recession jobs lost -- meanwhile Maryland has recovered
97 percent of theirs.
The
governor has repeatedly championed tax
cuts to campaign contributors, while publicly blaming Pennsylvanians for
his failed policies. When will he learn that businesses don’t hire people because
their tax rate dropped -- they hire people because there is a demand for their
goods and services?
Blaming unemployed Pennsylvanians is not the answer
Here are some photos from an HDPC public hearing on House Bill 790 on March 27 just days after the bill was introduced and rushed through the House. There is one of a standing room only crowd, clearly people are interested in this issue. Thanks to Abington's Big Top Beverage and Rep. Madeleine Dean for hosting us.
I encourage people to ask the House Republicans for pictures from their public hearing and see what they come up with.
Days after a marathon debate on liquor privatization
2.0, the Philadelphia Inquirer included an editorial
quoting some of my floor remarks, while I am flattered they were paying such
close attention, I’m concerned about the “facts” they used to reach their
conclusions, after all I’m sure the paper has nothing to gain from private
liquor sales (clearing my throat) so why would they ignore history or mislead their readers? While I wait for them to print my response countering
their claims, here are some details of the plan that passed in the state House
based off my floor comments and focused on the claims of improved consumer convenience. The GOP claims liquor privatization is all about
consumer convenience, but based on my calculations there are at least 20
different configurations of licenses possible under their plan. Depending on
what you want and when determines where you should go…How does this make things less confusing for
consumers?
1.Beer Distributor
(D) – sells cases of beer
2.Beer Distributor
(D) – sells cases of beer and unlimited wine
3.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells cases of beer and unlimited wine and unlimited spirits
4.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells cases of beer and unlimited spirits
5.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells down to a six pack of beer
6.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells down to a six pack of beer, and unlimited wine
7.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells down to a six pack of beer, unlimited wine and
unlimited spirits
8.Beer Distributor
(D) - sells down to a six pack of beer, unlimited spirits
9.Restaurants/Hotel
(R ) – sell 2 six packs of beer to go and opened bottle of spirits and
open bottles of wine
10.Restaurants/Hotel
(R ) – sell 2 six packs of beer to go and 4 bottles of sealed wine and open
bottles of spirits
11.Restaurant/Hotel
(R) - sell up to 4 six packs of beer and open bottle of spirits and
open bottles of wine
12.Restaurant/Hotel
(R) - sell up to 4 six packs of beer and 4 bottles of sealed wine and
open bottles of spirits to go
13.Grocery Store –
12 bottles of wine
14.Grocery Store
with a café (R ) – 2 six packs of beer, unsealed/open wine and unsealed/
open bottles of spirits
15.Grocery Store
with a café (R ) – 4 six packs of beer, and unsealed/open wine and spirits
16.Grocery Store
with an R license and a Grocery Store license - 2 six packs of beer,
unsealed/open wine and spirits to go and 12 bottles wine
17.Grocery store
with an R license and a Grocery Store license – 4 six packs of beer and 12
bottles wine, open wine and spirits to go
18.Wine and Spirit
Retailers – unlimited Wine only
19.Wine and Spirit
Retailers – unlimited Wine and unlimited Spirits
20.Wine and Spirit
Retailers - unlimited Spirits only
In other words under the plan there
would be:
Ø8 possible license configurations for beer
distributors
Ø4 possible license configurations for restaurants and
hotels
Ø5 possible license configurations for grocery stores
Ø3 possible license configurations for wine and spirits
retailers.
WAIT there’s MOre:
Since this plan is intended to make things less
complicated for consumer…
Q. What are the hours of operations for a wine and
spirit store Monday through Saturday? How about on Sunday?
Answer.
9 a.m. -11 p.m. Monday - Saturday
9 a.m.
– 9 p.m. if have Sunday permit No Sunday permit 11 a.m. -9 p.m.
Q. What about a beer distributor
Answer.
24 hours, Monday through Saturday
Sunday without permit 9 a.m.- 9 p.m.
Q. What about a beer distributor that sells wine and
spirits?
Answer:
9 a.m. – 11 p.m. Monday - Saturday
Sunday no permit 11 a.m. – 9 p.m. Sunday with permit 9 a.m. -11 p.m. but can’t
be 24 hours
Q. What about a grocery store?
Answer. 7 a.m. -11 p.m. Monday through Saturday
Sunday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
with permit
Q. What if I go into a Grocery store that has an R
license and I want to buy a bottle of wine?
Answer:
7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Saturday
Sunday without permit 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. Sunday with permit 9 a.m. – 2 a.m.
What is the age of employment
for the various licenses?
Wine and Spirit Retail Establishment -21 years old
Grocery Store with Unlimited Wine – 18 years old
Restaurant or Bar -18 years old
Beer Distributor- 18 years old
Beer Distributor that sells unlimited wine - 21 years old (*note difference with grocery store*)
Beer Distributor that sells wine and spirits - 21years old
Three weeks of budget hearings finished up last week -- an annual
ritual where state agency chiefs, among others, testify before the
legislature’s Appropriations committees saying yea or nay to the governor’s
spending priorities.
It got kind of heated for a few testifiers this year.
Revenue?
A week after Attorney General Kathleen Kane rejected the
Corbett administration’s rapid, secretive and unconstitutional plan to turn
over the state’s thriving Lottery to British firm, Camelot LLC, Revenue
Secretary Dan Meuser made his appearance before the House panel. He found
himself battered with questions about the lottery plan. Namely, how much the
high price consultants the Administration hired need to be paid.
See, even while the Corbett administration decides its next
step (and the clock is quickly ticking toward the March 16 deadline), and even
if the plan goes up in smoke, Corbett’s handpicked high price consultants still
need to be paid -- like MILLIONS and MILLIONS of (taxpayer) dollars.
And before you say, well, come on, how much are we talking?
Isn’t “millions and millions” kind of broad? Well that’s all the Administration
has been able to report to Pennsylvanians.
When Meuser headed to a Senate hearing a week later – he still
didn’t know how much cash we’re talking.He knew it would be “substantial,” but less than $30 million. See where
my broad generalization of MILLIONS and MILLIONs comes from?
In my opinion, and probably in a lot of people’s opinions,
these multimillion dollar payments to Chicago’s Greenhill & Co. and
Baltimore’s Piper LLP are a big deal, and the Administration should dedicate
the necessary time to calculating them.
What I find so ironic about the Corbett administration’s
inability to figure all of this out, is that on many occasions Gov. Corbett has
compared Pennsylvania to the average family (albeit one that will cut to the
bone and refuse to consider Jr. picking up a part time job after school) evoking
images of a family around the dinner table looking at their finances.
But what family purchases a good or service without knowing
the price? Is this the way Pennsylvania families budget? Hire a firm hundreds
of miles away and worry about paying the bill later.
Please, if Gov. Corbett is going insist on using his tired
analogy comparing Pennsylvania to the typical American family, he ought to at
least provide his revenue chief with a calculator.
Here is the text of an email Corbett sent out in response to
groundswell of opposition to his plan to privatize the state Lottery. It was
distributed on Jan. 19, just days after House Democrats held a
Capitol news conference contesting the plan.
This email was meant to convince (aka deceive) seniors into
thinking funding for the programs which benefit them would actually gain from
giving our state Lottery to a foreign company. This only proves that Gov.
Corbett underestimates the intelligence of Pennsylvania seniors. Once they see
the facts, I’m guessing they’ll support this about as much as they supported Rick
Santorum’s plan to hand their Social Security savings to Bernie Madoff.
Read my comments below for a more accurate explanation of
his propaganda point by point.
1.Corbett claims there will be at least $3 billion
in new revenue generated for seniors just by handing over the Lottery.
Not so fast. Even if you buy his numbers,
any additional revenue generated would come from expanding the Lottery to
include Keno and video poker. Heck, PA could meet or exceed those projections
if we expanded under our current system, owned and operated by
PENNSYLVANIANS.That would make
additional dollars under the Corbett giveaway, ZERO.
2.Wow, $50 million set aside in this year’s budget.
That one time infusion of cash will definitely make up for the property tax
hikes or the millions cut in last year’s budget on programs to keep seniors in
their homes. This year’s $50 million won’t help much in future years when
Camelot fails to meet projections – for heaven sake it will barely cover
the bonuses it’s handing out to its top executives this year!
3.This is fantastic news…but the current Lottery
already has its offices in Pennsylvanian, so this isn’t really a gain. And
Camelot had already lost a little credibility when it set up shop in
neighboring Delaware …home of the infamous tax evasion haven – Delaware Loophole.
4.Camelot has already pledged to hire some
employees back, which pretty much proves they’ll be making layoffs. Sure those
workers could apply for unemployment compensation, if only the phone
lines at Labor and Industry weren’t always busy.
Having the phones lines tied up, is
the Corbett’s strongest strategy for keeping Pennsylvania’s unemployment
numbers down, and he’s still failing!
5.First, it’s just kind of hard not to laugh when
this governor talks transparency.How
many of these phone conversations were with voicemail? or how many staff
members from the same office sat in on a meeting? Plus the testimony at public
hearings came after Corbett’s announcement to award the contract. Although I’m
hopeful an intrepid reporter will request the list of the 100 legislators
Corbett spoke with, but that’d probably result in another
lawsuit against a member of the press – so much for transparency.
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