State Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, says the priorities for Democrats in the state senate are increasing education spending, creating jobs and economic development—all of which he noted, Gov. Tom Corbett has failed to do.
Not surprisingly, those priorities are precisely aligned with those of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf. And Costa admitted to the New Pittsburgh Courier editorial board, that when state senate and house Democrats return after their summer vacations, it will be all-Tom-Wolf-all-the-time.
“Wolf will win because of Corbett’s missteps,” said Costa. “A looming $1.2 billion deficit; 20,000 lost teacher jobs; he killed Adult Basic (senior healthcare option); he supported Voter ID, and on his watch—with a Republican house and senate—Pennsylvania went from seventh in job creation to 48th.”
Costa said Democratic senators in Harrisburg are poised to increase taxes on natural gas producers in an effort to replace some of the lost revenue. Their planned tax, just as Wolf proposed, would replace the current impact fee with a 5 percent severance tax. Costa estimated it would raise almost $500 million more than the impact fee, which brought in $225 million in 2013.
“We’d earmark between $350 million and $400 million for schools, $180 million to $200 million for the vastly underfunded Department of Environmental Protection and $100 million to $200 million for economic development,” he said.
Unlike the current impact fee, Costa would not require any of the severance tax be returned to communities that have been impacted the most by natural gas mining.
Costa said he and his fellow senators are also pushing for a Medicaid expansion, which Corbett has said he would not approve because the “free” federal money to pay for it as part of the Affordable Healthcare Act, runs out after a decade.
“The Rand Corp., the PA Economy League and the state’s independent fiscal office, have all said it would result in 500,000 more people covered, $400 million in savings and 35,000 new jobs,” said Costa. “As governor, we’re asking Tom Wolf to sign on to it his first day. That federal Medicaid funding is not going to go a way.”
Costa also said Corbett’s latest attempt to justify his pension reform plan (slowly replacing defined benefit plans with defined contribution plans for state employees) by claiming the alternative was huge property tax increases, failed because it would not result in any tangible savings for decades.
“We support anti-spiking legislation (preventing employees from artificially inflating their base retirement pay rate by working excessive amounts of overtime),” he said. “Some overtime is legitimate. If we limit it to 10 percent, we would save $1billion over the next 10 years.”
This is not to say property tax increases are not on his radar. Costa’s district includes Wilkinsburg, which has one of the highest school property tax rates in the state. But if, as he, his fellows and candidate Wolf propose, more state funding went to school districts then in the current formulation, then local tax rates need not increase.
