Josh Shapiro’s Trail of Broken Promises

Op-Ed by Matt Brouillette. A version of this piece originally appeared in the Gettysburg Times.

Politicians make promises. Politicians break promises. This is no surprise.

But when a politician seemingly aims to break as many major promises in as quick succession as Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro has done—to the point of working against his promised priorities—it raises questions.

These questions became more urgent as Shapiro repeatedly made the short list earlier this summer of potential vice-presidential candidates to join presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Had she selected him, Harris would have been looking for Shapiro’s help to moderate her progressive positions of banning fracking, defunding the police, raising money to bail out BLM protestors, opening up our borders, providing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded legal representation, ending private health insurance, and more.

But while Shapiro is hyper-focused on his image as a reasonable Democrat, his moderation is all talk and no action.

In 2022, when running for governor, Shapiro took flak from the Left for embracing several conservative ideas on the campaign trail—including accelerating the reduction of Pennsylvania’s corporate net income tax rate, supporting Lifeline (or PASS) Scholarships to help children in failing schools access better educational options, acknowledging the harmful impacts were Pa. to enter the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and more.

But during the first 18 months of his tenure, Shapiro has not only failed to make any progress on key promises, in some instances he’s proactively worked against them to the cheering of progressives everywhere.

The most high-profile of Shapiro’s broken campaign promises is his failure to support Lifeline Scholarships for kids trapped in Pennsylvania’s worst public schools—issuing a targeted veto of these scholarships last year and doing nothing to support them this year, despite calling them “unfinished business.”

Lifeline had support from virtually every Republican member of the legislature. All Shapiro needed was to work within his own Democrat party to get a few members on board. Instead, he cowered to unions and couldn’t get a single Democrat House member to support even letting the House bring Lifeline to the floor for a vote.

Then, there are Shapiro’s campaign-era concerns over former Gov. Wolf’s attempt to force Pennsylvania into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon cap-and-tax program that threatens to kill energy jobs while inflating prices. Specifically, Shapiro said, “I have real concerns about the impact it will have on consumer prices, hurting families at a time when many are struggling really to put food on the table.”

When Shapiro took office, Pennsylvanians entrance into RGGI was on hold pending a court ruling on a case challenging the constitutionality of Wolf’s entering the compact without legislative approval. The court ruled against Wolf, and the case should have been closed.

But contradicting his supposed “concerns” over RGGI, Shapiro went to court for the power to force Pa. into the pact. He offered the questionable excuse of ‘protecting executive authority.’ The case is still pending.

Laying RGGI to rest had bipartisan support, with Democrats and Republicans both making up a strong majority in voting against Wolf’s effort to join. Shapiro could have shown that his campaign “concerns” were sincere and walked away from RGGI. He chose the opposite.

Candidate Shapiro also supported accelerating the reduction of Pennsylvania’s sky-high corporate net income tax (CNIT) rate. Under legislation signed by Wolf in 2022, the CNIT will gradually reduce until 2031, when it reaches 4.99%. It currently stands at 8.49%, down from its high of 9.99%.

Specifically, Shapiro campaigned on reducing the CNIT to 4% by 2025 in order to make Pennsylvania “open for business.”

But despite his lip service, Shapiro hasn’t included an accelerated CNIT reduction in either of his budget proposals to date. This despite the fact that reducing the CNIT had bipartisan support, and accelerating this reduction would not have been a heavy political lift. Shapiro wouldn’t even have had to reach across the political aisle, as Republicans are already on board. But mind-bogglingly, he has made no real effort to fulfill this campaign pledge. ­

Shapiro’s favorite line in defending his lack of accomplishments is that he’s the “only governor in the nation with a divided legislature.”

This suggests that the roadblock to “getting stuff done” is the opposing party.

But as we’ve seen, this is hardly the case in multiple instances. Instead, Shapiro can’t get his own party on board or even advance bipartisan measures.

Shapiro talks a great game, but nearly halfway through his first term, he has failed to deliver on key campaign promises as he’s worked to undermine his own supposed priorities.

Voters have always known politicians make campaign promises they don’t keep. But in Shapiro’s case, it’s kids trapped in awful schools, families struggling to pay bills, and workers hoping to find jobs who bear the consequences.

As Shapiro touts his own greatness and undoubtedly relished being on the VP short-list, we should always remember those hurt by Shapiro’s trail of broken promises and recognize he’s as progressive as Kamala Harris.

# # # 

Matthew J. Brouillette is president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners. 

*Photo by Brian Kelly on Unsplash.