News & Brews November 24, 2025
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‘Josh Shapiro lost his own government shutdown’
In the Wall Street Journal, the Commonwealth Foundation’s Andrew Lewis and Megan Martin write, “Even as he signed the [state] budget, [Gov. Josh] Shapiro tried to take credit for reforms he had resisted. He ludicrously heralded the deal as an example of his ‘get stuff done’ motto. Yet the claim rings hollow from a governor who presided over a 135-day budget impasse, has delivered late budgets every year since taking office, and …. has proved the least effective Pennsylvania governor in at least half a century at building bipartisan consensus.” In short, in the recent budget impasse, despite being held up as the “future of the Democrat Party,” Shapiro “dropped progressive demands and caved to Republicans.”
Pa. Health Dept. can’t explain millions in spending
Well, this is concerning. An audit of the state Department of Health found the agency “can’t account for more than two-thirds of the $29 million it has spent on EMS services since 2021,” ABC27 reports. Auditor General Tim DeFoor “said the audit highlighted a lack of internal controls regarding the distribution of funds to regional EMS councils and the state EMS Advisory Board.” This isn’t the first time DOH has had financial accountability problems. In fact, “previous auditors general have found similar shortcomings in four other audits dating back to 2010,” the story notes.
On ed spending, more doesn’t always mean better
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a story yesterday stating what we’ve been saying for years: “When it comes to education spending, more isn’t always better…. School districts that spend the most per student do not always have the highest test scores, according to data from the state Department of Education.” As the CATO Institute’s Neal McCluskey explains in the piece, “the broad evidence suggests that we’ve been spending a lot of money in ways that aren’t making a difference.” (Relatedly, click here to see how much each state spends per student on K-12 education. Spoiler alert: Pa. is among the highest.)
Pa. Dems vote ‘no’ on denouncing socialism
On Friday, the U.S. House voted 285-98 in favor of a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism.” Ok. Great that it passed. But seriously, 98 reps decided to go on the record refusing to condemn the horrors of socialism. That’s a bit disturbing. Four of those reps are from Pennsylvania: Democrats Summer Lee, Dwight Evans, Madeleine Dean, and Mary Gay Scanlon.
Taxing data centers
The Post-Gazette reports that earlier this month, the state’s Public Utility Commission approved “a model tariff for data centers that will guide how the state’s electric utilities treat them.” Under the tariff, data centers would “make annual contributions to the utility’s hardship fund, which gives grants for utility payments to low-income customers. The smallest data centers (those whose peak demand is below 75MW) would be required to pay $250,000 while the biggest (500MW or more) would owe $1 million.” Regulators are considering—but not agreeing on—how to integrate data centers into the power grid.