News & Brews February 20, 2025
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WSJ: ‘Josh Shapiro’s Pa. budget trap’
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board wants the country to know how ridiculous Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal is. “Faced with a structural budget deficit, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro isn’t seeking economic growth to climb out of the hole. Instead he’s proposing to dig the state in deeper.” It could be that he “thinks a big progressive budget will impress Democratic presidential primary voters in 2028. But it could do the opposite.” Further, even as Pa. has a “31% proficiency in eighth-grade math and reading,” Shapiro “refuses to push fellow Democrats to approve a school-voucher program that he claims to support.”
Key points from state budget hearings
As state lawmakers have been hearing from various agency heads on the Shapiro administration’s proposed budget, the Senate GOP has been posting helpful summaries of key points of those hearings. For highlights of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearings with the Department of Revenue, Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, and Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, click here. And for key points from the committee’s hearings with the Pennsylvania State Police and Department of Health, click here.
DOGE, USAID, George Soros, and Larry Krasner
Columnist and consultant Ben Mannes writes in Broad + Liberty that among the more troubling discoveries about USAID spending is “the funding of organizations tied to [George] Soros family’s Open Society Foundations (OSF). These groups … engaged in so-called ‘transformative justice,’ and have received significant financial support from USAID under the pretense of promoting democracy and legal reform abroad. However, evidence suggests that their efforts extend beyond international initiatives, influencing radical prosecutorial movements.” A case in point is progressive Philly DA Larry Krasner, who “was elected with substantial financial backing from Soros-aligned PACs.”
Former gubernatorial candidate on track to become Allegheny County GOP chair
The Allegheny County Republican Committee will elect a new chair this weekend, and after two of the three candidates dropped out, it appears former gubernatorial candidate Jason Richey is the only candidate running. The other two candidates exited the race because “they disagreed with signing a nondisclosure agreement, before getting access to the contact information for more than 900 committee members,” the Post-Gazette reports. Richey has the backing of outgoing chair Sam DeMarco, who is resigning to take a position in U.S. Senator Dave McCormick’s office.
Budget hearings continue today: How to watch
House and Senate appropriations committee lawmakers will hold a third day of budget hearings today. On the House side, lawmakers will hear from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education-Community Colleges at 10:00 a.m. and from State Related Universities at 1:00 p.m. Watch those hearings here. On the Senate side, lawmakers will hear from the Department of State at 9:30 a.m. (watch here) and the Department of Transportation at 1:00 p.m. (watch here).