Common Sense Weekly
Welcome to Common Sense Weekly! This is the Commonwealth Foundation's weekly news roundup of policy issues being debated in Harrisburg and across Pennsylvania.
Shapiro's energy proposals threaten affordable, reliable energy in Pa.
In his op-ed “My commonsense plan for a new era of energy leadership in Pa.”
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(April 2, TribLive), Gov. Josh Shapiro claims, “Doing nothing is not an option.” However, his energy proposals are solutions in search of a problem that will do nothing but harm Pennsylvania’s energy industry and raise energy costs.
Shapiro’s Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction (PACER) is a carbon copy of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Like RGGI, PACER will impose a carbon tax, forcing energy producers to raise their rates. Carbon tax revenues will partially fund consumer rebates to mitigate rising energy costs. PACER robs Peter to pay Paul’s utility bill.
PACER also punishes an industry that has already reduced its carbon footprint. The Independent Fiscal Office recently released data demonstrating that Pennsylvania has reduced emissions while expanding power generation.
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Voter Registration Website Is Really a Partisan Portal
If you were to visit the website Vote.pa, you can enter your personal information, and the website will register you to vote with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
But don’t be surprised a few weeks later if the website is also sliding into your text messages urging you to vote for your local Democratic candidate, or maybe begins sending you even more political mailers than you already get each fall.
Vote.pa sounds very much like the real Pennsylvania Department of State website: vote.pa.gov. The website’s logo — a deep blue outline of Pennsylvania with a white “vote” inside the borders — looks thematically similar to the blue keystone with a white “PA” used in official state websites.
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PA Lawmakers Push for Massive Tax on Businesses
Sen. Christina Tartaglione, D-Philadelphia, is introducing legislation to bump the minimum wage to $20. It would also set tipped wages at 70% of the minimum wage. Currently, tipped employees earn $2.83 per hour.
Tartaglione said this change is necessary.
“On $7.25, you can’t have food on your table, pay your rent,” she said. “You can’t pay for your medicine. This has to change.”
In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, did not signal support for increasing the minimum wage, but rather supported increasing access to higher paying jobs.
“When you have a maximum wage job you have greater stability, can plan for the future, are able to maintain your home and can help your children thrive,” he wrote.
Alex Halper, senior vice president for government affairs at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said while well intentioned, raising the wage ignores the realities faced by some employers and non-profits and may lead to job losses.
He said the state should do more to bring business to the state.
“We should be prioritizing policies that enhance Pennsylvania’s economic competitiveness and make our state a more attractive place to do business,” he said. “At the same time, lawmakers should get to work on policies that target support to low-income Pennsylvanians without risking job losses.”
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Gov. Shapiro’s labor agreements will harm workers and taxpayers
Gov. Josh Shapiro often brags about his competitive spirit. However, his recent directive to “evaluate and implement
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” Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) into public construction projects is anything but competitive.
When Gov. Shapiro announced this decision, it’s no wonder why he did so in front of several prominent Pennsylvania union bosses in a union training center. PLAs are a gift-wrapped handout to labor unions, who openly applauded the governor’s decision to funnel more construction bids to unionized shops—all at the expense of taxpayers and a huge majority of Pennsylvania’s businesses and workers.
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