President Obama will give his State of the Union address next Tuesday, and we learned this week that our two U.S. Senators, Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, will sit together during the speech as a show of bipartisan civility. Nicely done, fellas. Whatever it is that inspired you to do this, perhaps you can share it with the rest of your colleagues.
For if some members of Congress were more civil and bipartisan, maybe the 84% of Americans wouldn’t strongly disapprove of Congress’ very existence. The good news is that Congress’ approval rating is now slightly higher than the nation’s unemployment rate.
President Obama this week put the kibosh on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s oil sands region (which sounds like a lovely vacation spot) to Texas. Lots of people seemed really angry about the decision, and we join in that sentiment, if only because we don’t like the idea of a pipeline using our state’s nickname when the darned thing would actually get anywhere near Pennsylvania. Saska-Tex XL pipeline? Fine.
In related oily news, a good number of news outlets this week carried the heartwarming warning that gasoline prices will top $4.00 a gallon by summer. Of course, in the same article, an industry expert is quoted as saying that, essentially, it is all a big guessing game and no one really knows where gas prices are going. So in summary, gas prices either will, or will not, rise to $4.00 a gallon by some random date sometime in the future.
Chester-Upland School District is out of cash, out of time and now, making national news as the Corbett Administration denied a request for emergency cash to keep the teachers paid and the doors open. Look, we know that Chester-Upland hasn’t exactly been a model of efficiency, but maybe it is time to holster the blamethrowers and remember the 3,600 kids who need a school to attend. We can tell you from experience that, with no school to keep them occupied, kids WILL find something to keep themselves busy, and some of their chosen activities may not be beneficial to the community at large. Or to themselves.
Perhaps taking that scenario into consideration, a federal judge this week ordered the Department of Education to front some $3 million to Chester-Upland to at least keep the doors open while everyone grapples for a solution.
Lawmakers returned to the Capitol this week to continue the work of the 2011-2012 Session, with priority one being to finish up the agreement on a Marcellus Shale impact fee and regulatory bill. No sweat, right? Just clean up a few minor details and put it in the books. Not so fast, Mr. Movin’ Too Fast. A gang of environmentalists and local government folks came out this week with a simple request: kill this thing and start over. And they insist that they will be taking names to remember in November for all who don’t heed their admonition. Of course, you’ll be hearing a similar warning on every issue this year, since it is an election year. Pass (or don’t pass) ____ or we’ll be there in November!
We learned this week that 88,000 Pennsylvania children (or 88,000 miniature examples of waste, fraud and abuse) have lost Medicaid coverage since August. What are we, Texas all of the sudden? At some point, people might begin to realize that these kiddies will now end up in the emergency room (otherwise known as the most expensive health care delivery room in America) for every ailment, which will end up costing everyone even more money for uncompensated care.
You know who isn’t losing money? Casinos, that’s who (since corporations are now people, we can use “who” to describe them, thank you very much). We learned this week that 2011 was a banner year for gaming, as revenues topped $3 billion, putting us in a virtual dead heat with New Jersey for the #2 slot behind Nevada. Once the final licenses come online, we will blow the Garden State’s doors off, on that you can bet (see what we did there?)
The fight over whether or not to dredge the Delaware River to deepen the shipping channel (so, you know, actual ships can navigate it) has been going on since George Washington got his canoe grounded 25 feet from shore. This week, another group of no-dredgers went to court to stop the U.S. Army Corps from continuing its work to deepen the channel by five feet. Yup, a decades-long war-turned-court battle over five…freakin’…feet.
But not all was doom and gloom this past week, as the new state law took effect allowing beer distributors to stay open longer on Sundays. This means the chance of our Super Bowl party running out of beer before kickoff is now officially nil.
School districts are bracing for another big spike in teacher pension contributions, while the state is looking at a PSERS contribution of roughly $320 million in the upcoming budget. Something tells us that these two issues will somehow, some way, end up being linked to the battle over basic education funding in the budget before all is said and done. Don’t ask us how; stuff like this just seems to magically happen under the big dome.
The drive is on across Pennsylvania to begin converting coal-fired power plants to gas-fired, since we apparently have a lot of natural gas to spare. The upside is that right now, natural gas prices are relatively low. The downside is that we also have a lot of coal to spare, so we’ll have to figure out a way to get it to China more efficiently. We’re sure they will take it.
The battle over where Shell will locate its fancy-shmancy new ethylene cracking plant is beginning to zero in on Beaver County, north of Pittsburgh. Close to rail, water and roads? Check. Lots of empty industrial space? Check. Close to natural gas supplies? Check. Workforce starving for good jobs? Mega-check.
As Harrisburg’s esteemed leaders continue to examine the new audit that lays bare why the city ended up with over $300 million in debt, some of those leaders have figured out what to do to get the city back on a course to solvency: take money away from city employees. Yes, since it was the unionized city employees who caused all the problems (although, oddly enough, they didn’t show up anywhere in the audit), by all means, they should have their contracts re-opened and their pay cut.
Not all is bleak in the midstate region, however, as steelmaker ArcelorMittal is about to undergo a $54 million furnace upgrade as it tries to attract bigger contracts, which would entail hiring more workers. This is good news, and it also followed up nicely with a piece we authored this week about Kennametal’s push to educate the public about the health of the manufacturing sector. You can check it out here.
Elsewhere on the Triadvocate this week, we gazed into our Triad Crystal Ball (which is actually made of plastic), and gave you our state budget predictions, which we hope are better than our Super Bowl prediction (Eagles vs. Steelers; stupid plastic ball). We also introduced you to a brand new blog dedicated to educating the public about the value of public-private partnerships.
That’s all for this week, wrap it up and put a bow on it. We’ll be back next week as we get ever closer to the second budget address of Governor Corbett, which we will cover relentlessly, ‘cus that is kinda what we do. Until then, hit us up on Facebook and Twitter, and let us know how you’ve been!
From all your friends at Triad, have a great weekend!
The king of course!
Posted by: meditative music | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 02:42 AM