Common Sense Weekly

Here's Commonwealth Foundation's weekly news roundup of policy issues being debated in Harrisburg and across Pennsylvania.

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Despite Shapiro’s Failed Leadership, 2025-26 Budget Secures Key Permitting Wins, Ends Threat of RGGI

Despite Gov. Josh Shapiro’s failed leadership and a 135-day stalemate, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a compromise budget for the 2025–2026 fiscal year.

The budget, totaling $50.09 billion, includes a 5.1 percent spending increase. While the agreement includes record spending levels and expands the structural deficit, the final deal is $1.4 billion less than Shapiro’s reckless, extreme proposal.

The long-awaited deal includes several wins for families and employers, including blocking energy taxes on working families, expediting permits for business development, expanding tax credit scholarships for low-income students, and reforming welfare.

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IN DEPTH: What You Need to Know About the 2025-26 State Budget

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Wall Street Journal: What Powers Union Politics? Dues Money

That big-labor bosses favor Democratic candidates isn’t news, but some unionized workers might be interested—and startled—to learn how much of their dues money is going to politics.

A new report from the Commonwealth Foundation says that four big public-worker unions spent more on elections and political causes in 2023–24 than on representing their members.

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RELATED: Unions Spend Big on Politics — Often at the Expense of Their Members

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Gov. Josh Shapiro Still Ain’t “Getting Sh*t Done”

In The New York Times, columnist Binyamin Appelbaum thinks Gov. Josh Shapiro is the future of the Democratic Party. But Appelbaum’s puff piece ironically concluded that the Pennsylvania governor has “a lot of stuff to get done.”

And there’s a reason for this long to-do list: Despite his “get s— done” motto, Shapiro has accomplished very little in his three years as governor.

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