News & Brews July 1, 2025
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Three strikes and you’re … Gov. Josh Shapiro
It’s three strikes for the divided Pennsylvania legislature and its leader, Gov. Josh Shapiro,” reports The Center Square. For the third time in Shapiro’s three years in office, the state budget is officially late. “In 2023, Shapiro’s first year in office, parts of the budget weren’t finished until December. The following year, the governor signed off on July 12.” The debate this year has centered on taxing and regulating skill games and bailing out mass transit. But as we’ve said, any budget that doesn’t also increase educational opportunity for Pennsylvania’s children who are stuck in failing, dangerous, and even abusive schools is an unacceptable product.
Philly union goes on strike
The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees District 33 in Philadelphia has gone on strike after failing to get its ridiculous demands in contract negotiations. The AP reports, “Union leaders, in their initial contract proposal, asked for 8% annual raises each year of the three-year contract, along with cost-of-living hikes and bonuses of up to $5,000 for those who worked through the pandemic. The union also asked the city to pay the full cost of employee health care, or $1,700 per person per month.” Remember, these demands would be funded by taxpayers. For her part, Mayor Cherelle Parker had “offered raises that amount to 13% over her four-year term and added a fifth step to the pay scale to align with other unionized workers.”
U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans will not seek re-election
In May of 2024, U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (Philadelphia) suffered what he insisted was a “minor” stroke. He said he expected “to be back voting in Washington in about six weeks.” Seven months later, he still wasn’t back. Now, he’s announced he’s retiring at the end of his term. The Inquirer reports that Evans “said he is fully capable of serving the next year, but made the decision not to run again.” There’s no shortage of folks lining up in hopes of succeeding Evans. “Three sitting state lawmakers have already expressed interest including: State Sen. Sharif Street, the state Democratic Party Chair; and State Reps. Morgan Cephas and Chris Rabb.”
‘Pa.’s muddled leadership losing to Ohio, W.Va.’
Commonwealth Foundation Senior Fellow Gordon Tomb writes that as Pennsylvania’s population struggles, “West Virginia’s population has registered net in-migration for the first time” in more than 100 years. Meanwhile, while Pennsylvania ranks 36th in economic outlook, Ohio ranks 25th. Why are we lagging? One big reason is “Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose inclination is to spend big, tax more, kowtow to public sector union leaders, and pick winners and losers in the marketplace.”
The myth of the $3.3 trillion deficit hike
Gov. Shapiro yesterday spouted off a bunch of Democrat talking points on the proposed federal reconciliation bill. Among the spin? A looming $3.3 trillion federal deficit hike. But the Wall Street Journal busts that myth. The Journal Editorial Board writes such an increase is “only true if you assume that Congress was going to tolerate a $4.5 trillion tax increase. That would be the result if the 2017 tax reform expired at the end of this year, as most of the individual tax provisions are scheduled to do. Congress was never going to allow that. Even Democrats support extending most of the 2017 individual cuts…. In any rational world, changes in the law would be scored against current policy.” But no one ever said the Democrat spin machine was rational.