Tom Corbett - Massive Supporter of Education

By Greg Harvey, Treasurer

Needless to say, Governor Corbett is regularly subject to unnecessary criticism. Of all the topics his opponents blast him for, none is more absurd than that of his education performance. With the election coming this year, Democratic candidate Tom Wolf has released a number of campaign ads claiming that Corbett is anti-education; he states (often) that Corbett cut spending for education and has subsequently harmed our schools. However, Wolf’s ads are blatantly wrong, as an overview of actual data shows. 

We’ll start with the main issue: Pennsylvania’s educational spending. Wolf claims that Corbett cut over $1 billion for education, but the Commonwealth Foundation finds this false. While there was a large decrease initially during Corbett’s term, it was not due to his administration. Rather, the $1 billion “cut” was from the expiring of temporary federal stimulus funds. In other words, the decrease in funding was solely due to the federal government ending a stimulus program that was designed to have a limited life, not from state actions. Obviously, it makes little sense to blame a state governor for the actions of the federal government.

On the state end, Corbett has helped to increase state funding for education more that any Pennsylvania governor ever. Looking at the state’s budgets from the Governor’s Budget Office, Corbett has increased the amount of money the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gives for education purposes every year he’s been in office. Again: he has not cut any state funding for schools. Instead, according to a Yahoo News article, the amount allocated for education in the 2014-2015 budget once again breaks the state’s record for funding with $12 billion budgeted. Fascinatingly, the last two times the record was in 2012 and in 2013, both under Governor Corbett. Clearly, saying this administration hasn’t adequately funded schools doesn’t seem to match up with facts.

That being said, it is true that public schools are struggling financially, but the causes for these troubles are much more complicated. Pennsylvania is currently undergoing a pension crisis for its public school teachers, with $50 billion in pension debt that school districts across the state are struggling to budget for and pay, according to the Washington Examiner. These underfunded pension plans, more than anything else, constitute the reason for our schools’ budget woes and, ultimately, why property taxes continue to rise. The multitude of this debt is too large to fix simply by allocating more money to it from the general budget, as Corbett’s opponents tend to claim. Rather, PennLive reports that Corbett has advocated the best possible solution: shifting teachers’ retirement plans from pension-based to a 401(k) style. Such a shift would save school districts up to $13 billion and be enough to fund the debt. While the plan was struck down in the Pennsylvania Congress earlier this year, Corbett has vowed to continue pressing for it.

In conclusion, Governor Corbett has done everything he can do to keep Pennsylvania’s education top notch, and his opponents’ arguments are not based on fact. Pennsylvania has never spent as much on education as it has under the current administration. The only “cuts” to education were due to the discontinuation of federal stimulus money, which is far outside any governor’s control. Finally, the real causes for the state’s educational budget troubles were from improper retirement planning for more than a decade, and Corbett’s plan would adequately solve the problem. In short, Corbett has proven to be completely pro-education regardless of what Tom Wolf says, and, as a college student, I could not be more thankful for his support.

Tom Corbett - A Jobs Producing Governor

By Greg Harvey, Treasurer

When normal non-economists like us discuss the economy, we talk about jobs- the unemployment rate, whether companies are hiring or firing, etc. Sure, we may mention GDP or the trade balance, but the jobs report is the only tangible measure by which we can actually gauge economic performance. And this focus on jobs is not unwise, as many other economic measurements (such as those previously mentioned) are affected by the health of the labor force. Such a focus on jobs leads to the conclusion that Pennsylvania under Governor Tom Corbett is in a promising position as supported by the data explained in this post.

When Corbett came into office in 2011, the nation was still struggling from the 2008 crash. Though the Great Recession had ended (on paper) in June, 2009, the economy was in a period of economic stagnation, with unemployment stuck at around 9%. Pennsylvania was in a relatively better position at roughly 8% unemployment, but it was far from optimum. Something had to be done.

Once in office, Corbett began a series of business friendly policies which, as will be discussed later, have succeeded in boosting Pennsylvanian job creation. Perhaps most notably, he promoted natural gas drilling; the effects of which were written about by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Basically, largely because of Corbett’s support, Pennsylvania has become the second largest natural gas drilling state in terms of employment. Other states in the Marcellus Shale generally have less friendly business policies, like New York which bans fracking outright, and have not come even remotely close to matching Pennsylvania’s success. And these jobs, whose average pay of $83,000 easily beat the state’s median pay of $52,267, help to support many other PA industries, according to a Penn State study. Essentially, we can assume that many job gains in other industries since the drilling boom began were caused by Corbett’s adoption of natural gas drilling.

Even though the natural gas industry has been Corbett’s greatest economic success, he has done much more to make Pennsylvania a business friendly state. He’s introduced budgets that would end the simultaneous taxation of business income and business assets, reduce the state corporate tax rate (PA’s rate being the highest in the nation), and allow start-up business tax deductions to aid new businesses, among other positive plans.

Obviously, this would all be for naught if success didn’t follow. Thankfully, Corbett’s plans are working. In June, 2014, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.6%, well below the national average of 6.1% and even further from the 8.1% rate Corbett began with. And, considering that Corbett oversaw a decrease of 55,000 government positions, it’s clear that the private sector, easily the most important aspect of the economy, has done very well during Corbett’s term.

However, as with most of Corbett’s accomplishments, there is some ridicule of his performance.  Critics tend to point to PA’s 47^th ranking of job creation in percent since 2011. However, as George Washington University economist Tara Sinclair points out, it’s expected that Pennsylvania’s job growth would be lower than other states because PA was hurt less during the Great Recession compared to the rest of the country. In other words, while other states may gain a larger percentage of growth, it’s merely to replace what they lost, and PA simply has less to replace.

Overall, the job market has made tremendous strides under Governor Tom Corbett. His adoption of business friendly policies, including natural gas companies, has put Pennsylvania in a much better position than when he took over in 2011. However, as is typical nationwide, our economy is not out of the woods yet. Therefore, we need Corbett, because no other candidate will embrace business and subsequently foster job creation like our governor has.