The admission of Altoona as the 27th community on the state’s list of Act 47 (distressed) municipalities has again given reason to examine the merits of the program.  There will be some chatter, but the legislature is unlikely to take serious action.  Act 47 is 25 years old and 20 towns are still on the list.

(This writer has some experience.  First, four years as Mayor of Greenville Borough, Mercer County, in Act 47 for a decade.  Second, his company bid, unsuccessfully, to be the Act 47 coordinator for the City of New Castle in Lawrence County.)

By one measure, every third class city in PA and many boroughs are eligible for Act 47 designation.  A municipal government must be broke, show difficulty in balancing a budget and rely on a deteriorating tax base.

Large factories close and deprive the town of a lucrative tax source.  The people with jobs move to the suburbs.  Police and fire labor talks put expert union negotiators against elected councilors who have never done this before.  Towns can bring in their own hired guns, but, remember, they are broke.

There are more deep-rooted reasons.

Until the early 1960s piecemeal annexation was permitted in Pennsylvania.  If you lived in an area outside the city or borough and desired sewer and water services, your only recourse was to petition your area’s properties into the urban municipality.

In one of the smartest moves to ever benefit the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, the legislature passed and Gov. William Scranton signed a law banning piecemeal annexation.  From that point on, annexation was a ballot issue and both the gaining and losing municipality must produce an affirmative vote for annexation to happen.

Sewer and water services could still be extended to these “growth” areas but only upon terms satisfactory to the outlying municipality’s leaders.  The law strengthened rural municipalities, mostly Republican, and weakened Democrat-leaning urban communities.   In domino-like extension of effects, blocking urban growth stifled labor union power when collective bargaining by local government workers became legal in Act 95 of 1970.

If the state was ever going to become as “blue” as California or New York, the end of piecemeal annexation made that impossible.  Five decades have passed and repeal of that prohibition is not on anyone’s priority list.

In 2012 with the state government solidly in control of Republicans, only one fix of Act 47 is likely.  Legislation requiring arbitrators to consider a municipality’s fiscal status when ruling on labor disputes is pending.  Republicans will delight watching Democrat urban government leaders go head-to-head against organized labor.

Township residents work in urban areas, use libraries, airports, parks and ball fields maintained by urban governments.  Because the township of their residence does not underwrite these services, they pay as little as one-sixth of the property taxes paid by city dwellers.

The role of Act 47 coordinators is another aspect of the state’s role in aiding distressed municipalities that needs tweaking.  The legislature ruled out trustees with powers normally available to cure bankruptcies.

Instead, Act 47 coordinators must be expert “jawboners,” able to convince local distressed government leaders and unions to “do the right thing.”  Sometimes a state official will threaten to withhold some government “goodie” although there is no known example of the bluff called.

Act 47 coordinators have become a job corps unto itself.  When the economy left fewer companies here to support the Pennsylvania Economy League, the PEL was handed Act 47 coordinators contracts.  Long on expertise, these people were short in political skills to evoke favorable actions.

Pennsylvania legislators are also talking about empowering local governments to impose sales taxes.  This is not expected to see the light of day because it would strengthen Democrat entities and make us look like other states.

Act 47 status does permit the distressed communities to tax people who work there but reside elsewhere.  Appellate court interpretations of the state constitution however have given this “tax without representation” a cruel twist.  Urban towns in Act 47 who want to tax non-resident workers must be prepared to tax residents even higher.

The theory is that residents require 24 hour services while non-residents do not.

Workers and small business people share the bottom of the economic food chain in America.  At the top are the “one per centers,” comprised mostly of those who manipulate big businesses with the help of government pawns paid with large contributions to state and federal legislators and elected government executives.

 

 

Food chain links in-between are occupied by clueless consumers who lament losing jobs to overseas on their way to Wal-Mart.

 

 

There is little chance the two losing groups will ever become allies in the struggle to prevent continued concentration of wealth among the “one per centers.”

 

 

Workers denied their share of the profits have been well documented.  CEOs drawing pay hundreds of times what workers earn get criticized but no less money.  PNC Bank CEO Jim Rohr who used TARP money to gobble up National City Bank at a steep discount from an already depressed stock price was paid over $16 million in 2011, 488 times the average take home of $34,053.  US Steel CEO John Surma was paid over $10 million, about 300 times the average.  He led his company to a Standard & Poor’s “less than investment grade” rating for bonds issued recently and still had time, as Penn State Trustee vice chair, to help execute the firing of Joe Paterno.

 

 

Tracking the stagnancy of income among small business owners is not as easy.  “What People Earn,” a popular feature in Parade Magazine with its latest edition published last month, sheds some light.  In Parade’s latest survey, people who had been queried by the magazine years before, were asked what they earn this year and the comparison reported.

 

 

Of the eight people classified as small entrepreneurs, seven reported stagnation in earnings.

 

 

Only Marshall Kelley, a funeral director in Arkansas, saw a substantial increase in his income.  In 1996 he earned $45,000 and this year will take home over $100,000.

 

 

More typical is Carron Morrow, a caterer in Montgomery, AL.  In 1996 she had ten employees and was making $30,000 annually.  Now, at age 63, she is still making $30,000 doing all the work with the help of her 83-year-old mother.

 

 

Glen Perkins owns a guitar shop in Springfield, MO where in 2003 he took home $18,000.  “Business has been brutal,” moaned the 59-year-old who does not believe he will make any profits this year.

 

 

The “one per centers” have left Glen and others like him behind in their efforts to hog all the money.  With their huge contributions to state and federal legislators they could easily make payment of sales taxes by internet stores a higher priority.  People looking for a guitar experience Perkins’ display models first hand, and then pay less by buying on the Internet.

 

 

Until a decade or two ago, the retirement nest egg for Perkins would come with the sale of his business.  Now he will be lucky to sell his inventory for half of what he paid for it.  He will likely end his career with a liquidation of his business assets.

 

 

The future is likely the same for Dennis Salisbury, 68, a Tennessee sporting goods store owner, who earned $80,000 in 2002 and will be lucky to make $75,000 this year.  Salisbury’s prices and selections hardly compare with Dick’s Sporting Goods?

 

 

Maybe the editors of Parade could not find any office supply store owners.   Staples is one of many chains that have wiped out the “Mom and Pops” in this category.  Gov. Mitt Romney refers to this process as “creative destruction” and says it is necessary to improve efficiency and stabilize markets.

 

 

The Staples empire was fashioned by Bain Capital, investment bankers.  Romney brags about his role in that deal.  Stranger yet, most of the deposed office store owners can’t wait to vote for Romney in the fall.

 

 

Ditto for struggling small manufacturers who serve as a supplier to a big factory.  Large plants now subcontract functions once performed in-house because they could hire non-union at lower wages and no benefits.  Now the small manufacturers can’t borrow expansion or modernization money because banks controlled by “one per centers” don’t like the risk and low return.

 

 

Small business owners are not about to crawl into bed with labor organizations that they view as corrupt and demanding.  Small business people patiently wait for “one per centers” to share their wealth.

 

 

For more reading:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/mitt-romney-bain-capital-and-the-gospel-of-creative-destruction/2012/01/09/gIQAfRKEsP_story.html

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/print-edition/2012/04/27/pittsburgh-ceo-pay-disparity-raising.html

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204138204576603100469929700.html

 

http://harpers.org/archive/2012/03/hbc-90008478

 

(Second in a series.)

Tragedies such as the Sandusky-Penn State scandal normally spit off nothing but victims.  This scandal had its share, but there was also one winner.

Gov. Tom Corbett, the only scandal player to control his own destiny, used his command position to maximum personal advantage.  If this was a chess game, Corbett, maneuvering his way to a four-year residency at the governor’s mansion, had two more Queens sitting on the sidelines ready to be called to battle.

Corbett was going to be elected governor regardless the damage to the reputation of Joe Paterno, the coach’s beloved Penn State, and one of the most admired football programs in the America.

Corbett controlled just enough of the events to insure fallout on his candidacy did not happen.  There is no proof that he broke any laws, although he would not be the first prosecutor to blur the lines.  Mostly he used his powers as Attorney-General to manipulate timing of events.  Here are some examples.

The Governor has been accused of “slow-walking” the investigation.  He first was aware of the complaints against Sandusky in March 2009, for certain, and maybe as early as 2008 while he was campaigning for a second term as Attorney-General.  Done with one campaign, the Allegheny County Republican geared up for the run for Governor in 2010.

Only a single investigator was assigned to the probe even though a Harrisburg sitting grand jury included it on their agenda.   By comparison, he had assigned a small army to probe the House of Representatives in the “Bonusgate” scandal, even getting a gang of Democrats to trial before the Governor’s election in 2010.

Corbett was not yet sworn in as Governor when an unusual event occurred in the grand jury room on Jan. 12, 2011.   Former PA Supreme Court Justice and also former Penn State Chief Counsel Cynthia Baldwin actually sat in the super-secret grand jury room while two University officials testified.  They believed she was representing them because, after all, she had driven them to Harrisburg in response to the subpoenas.  She maintains she was there representing PSU.

No attorney (or anyone else) is permitted to attend a PA grand jury process and this stunt could only have occurred with the approval of Corbett.

Jerry Sandusky, a former coaching assistant under Paterno, is accused of child molestation while he was running “the Second Mile,” a very popular charity that helps wayward boys in Central Pennsylvania.  Current and former board members donated over $200,000 to Corbett’s governor campaign while unknowing of the investigation into Sandusky’s activities.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell had given tentative approval to a $3 million grant to Second Mile which, due to timing of legal documents, had to be finally approved by Corbett.  Following the indictments against Sandusky, Corbett quietly Okayed processing of the grant.  When media began questioning his actions, he put a hold on the grant again.

Unless Corbett has a hook on the judges involved in the remainder of the proceedings he will not have as much control on the outcomes.  Corbett’s ideal is plea bargains with all defendants.  No trials and no appeals would end the scandal as a news event in the next few months, far in advance of his re-election campaign in 2014.

Corbett has benefitted from the state’s largest newspapers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh not assigning reporters to the story and, with some events, using wire coverage.  Inside the state coverage has been more intense by the Harrisburg Patriot-News, highlighted by 24-year-old Sara Ganim’s Pulitzer Prize winning coverage.  TV bureaus around the state have also carried first-run stories.

In 2014 will the Democrats put up a “better-than-normal” candidate for the mid-term race and will Penn State alumni vote en bloc against Corbett.

For further reading:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7770996/in-wake-joe-paterno-death-sandusky-sex-abuse-scandal-power-struggle-spread-penn-state-state-capital

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/02/penn_state_legal_counsel_cynth.html

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s2367503.shtml

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/michael_mccann/11/15/sandusky.legal/index.html

http://chronicle.com/article/How-Penn-States-Sex-Abuse/129767/

 

By the looks of the lineups for Tuesday’s Primary Election, the Democrats again have little intention of trying to win back control of the PA State Senate.  Republicans have been in control of that legislative body for over three decades.  Democrats seem in no hurry to change the status.

Parties typically form legislative campaign committees which serve important purposes.  The committees seek qualified candidates for seats they intend to challenge or have been vacated, form issues and coordinate events that will focus on these races and, more importantly, raise funds to assist the candidates.

In 2012 a minimum of $300,000 is needed to win an open Senate seat and twice that to upset an incumbent.  The record for money spent in a PA State Senate race may have occurred in 1990.

Because those legislators elected that year would have a say in the reapportionment that would occur after the 1990 census and the Republicans had a smaller majority, both national Party committees poured over a million dollars into the state races.  Republicans were victorious and their skillful redrawing of voter registration lines in 1991 enabled them to widen their margins.

Success breeds more success and today Republicans hold a healthy 30 to 20 margin in the state, despite a one million plurality of Democrat voter registration.

These questions need answering:

Is the Republican State Senate campaign committee the most skillful and resourceful in the United States?  Or is the Democrat counterpart the dumbest, the most ineffective and/or the laziest?  More likely, the results over the past two decades are due to some verification of both.

PA Republicans have Gerrymandered voter district lines and achieved results in the last few years that have relegated Texas GOPers to a back seat.  Consider these results:

The year 2006 was a landslide year for the Democrats nationally.  There are 101 legislative bodies in these United States.  49 states have bicameral assemblies; Nebraska is unicameral for a total of 99.  Add in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate for a total of 101.  The Democrats made gains in all but one of those 101 legislative bodies at the 2006 elections.  In the PA Senate Republicans began holding a 29-21 margin and this margin held after the elections.

2008 was another banner year for Democrats nationally, but again that trend did not hold in PA where Democrats actually fell farther behind (now 30 to 20) in the Senate.

Each General Election (even numbered years) one half of the 50 PA Senate seats are up for election to another four-year term.  This year 15 of the 25 seats up for grabs are now held by Republicans and 10 by Democrats.

Republicans in four of the Districts are retiring and make these seats ripe for challenge.  However in two of these races (retiring Mary Jo White in the 21st and John Pippy in the 37th) Democrats have already forfeited by filing no candidates.

In six of the remaining 23 seats Democrats also filed no candidates.  Republicans waived a contest in only five of the 25 contests and will battle to win in the remaining 20.  Mathematically Republicans appear to be in better shape to hold on or even improve their margin.

The Republicans appear to be in danger of losing only one seat.  The 49th in Erie County has been held for four terms by Jane Earll despite an almost 2-1 Democrat voting edge.  The opportunity has drawn four Democrats to file for the primary.

Democrats are not counting their chickens yet.  President Obama carried Pennsylvania in 2008 but not because of the results in Erie County.  Additionally, Republican quality candidate Janet Anderson has been understudy to Earll for a decade or more.

How much longer will our “do nothing” Congress, do nothing?

The practical answer is a minute before midnight, Monday, December 31, 2012 . . . maybe.

Remember Congress and the President’s “chicken” deal of last summer to avert the debt-ceiling crisis?  In a rare display of bi-partisanship, Congress voted and the President signed certain triggering legislation to keep from defaulting on the National Debt.

In exchange for another of those very temporary increases in debt ceilings -- this one projected to take us until early in 2013 -- a panel of legislators (absurdly called a “Super Committee”) was to figure out a way to get our financial house in order.

Not everyone took the committee solution route seriously.  For example, PA Senator Pat Toomey voted against the creation of the committee then accepted an appointment to it.   Since the Super Committee failed to arrive at negotiated solutions, certain taxes are hiked and certain programs get funding cuts on the first day of 2013.

Those pesky Bush tax cuts will finally expire, ticking off one per centers and one-per cent-"intenders."  Drastic reductions to programs ranging from Defense to entitlements occur.

The resulting chaos will have two effects, say the experts.  First, a continually struggling economy will slip back into a recession.  More precisely, 2.8 per cent of the 3 per cent growth projected for 2013 will evaporate in the first quarter of next year alone as a result of these actions.

Second, again we will show the world we no longer have the resolve to solve our problems, creating jitters overseas and in the bond market.  Our credit rating will be lowered again, this time causing a hike in interest rates that the Federal Reserve can’t muzzle.

Could this crisis become the top campaign issue for everyone running for Federal office this year?  What a great opportunity to develop a creative resolution in the manner that has always set us above everyone else on the planet.

Dreaming on, compromise might no longer be the second least used word in political campaigns.  (Behind “draft” as applied to the military.).

The candidates claim they are giving us their positions on the important issues of the day.  Incumbents and candidates for House of Representatives, Senate, President and Vice President, are not talking about the next debt-limit showdown?

The first person to note absence of any dialogue on this impending crisis is Peter Coy, economics editor for Bloomberg BusinessWeek and probably the best current affairs reporter in the country today.  His article “The End is Coming: January 1, 2013”, appears in the magazine’s April 2-8 edition.

As guest on C-Span’s Washington Journal recently, Coy noted “everyone has to take a hit, not continue to tell the world (we) can’t manage our problems.”

Bitter partisanship has ruled Washington for a decade or longer.  Recent polls say 92 per cent of the voters are dissatisfied with the performance of Congress.  If an overwhelming majority of incumbents believe their conduct falls within the eight percent of acceptable behavior, look for two more years of bloodletting and finger pointing.

Please excuse Amanda Holt for trying to be a concerned citizen.

The 29-year-old piano teacher and Allentown area resident was not told she couldn’t have a say in voter boundary lines for members of the PA legislature and the US Congress.  She didn’t know that state lawmakers in Pennsylvania reserve these decisions for themselves.  How else could they protect their employment?

Ignorant of the above, Amanda drew up her own apportionment map.  She submitted it to the PA Reapportionment Commission this year.

She didn’t even know that as a Republican precinct committeewoman, she could be embarrassing her own Party.  Ms. Holt told the Harrisburg Patriot-News she “took on the project without thinking about parties” and has no intentions to run for an office.

Like it or not, some intentions or none, she has become the very brief face of redistricting reform in PA.  “Brief” because of how “reform” never stays on the table in this state.

Texas Republicans were known for the best “Gerrymandering “ (defined as “an unfair manipulation of an elected area for political advantage”), until recently.  Now PA has become the capital of distorted voter boundary lines.

This is not to say Republicans in those two states are necessarily more corrupt.  Rather, at least in PA, Democrats are lazy and dumber.

For example, Republicans have learned that the General Election in any year ending in a “0” is a must win because those in power over the next two years will redefine legislative voting districts.  In the five “zero-one-two” year-ending periods since one-man/one-vote, Republicans have completely dominated the process in three of these times and have shared power, forcing compromise, in the other two.

Pennsylvania Republicans have re-defined Gerrymandering in the 21st century.  How else does a state with a million more Democrat voters get divided 30-20 in favor of the Republicans in the State Senate?

In the 19 PA Congressional Districts, Republicans hold a comfortable 12-7 edge.  Their proposed redistricting plan had to deal with only 18 districts going forward and Republicans made sure that two incumbent Democrats are running against each other.

To get districts that will garner results like this requires boundaries that not only divide counties and small municipalities, but even voting wards, streets and roads.  The trick is to cram as many Democrats as possible into as few Senate Districts as possible.

Ignoring Ms. Holt’s testimony, the GOP 3-2 dominated commission opted for the Gerrymandered districts.  In the vote to reapportion state House districts the tally was actually 4 to 1.  Democrat House leader Frank Dermody also voted for the plan that made his district safer for him going forward.

The rush to Gerrymander has been derailed temporarily by the Supreme Court.  The Court is 4-3 Republican which includes Justice Joan Orie Melvin participating even though her sister is a State Senator and, at that time, would be affected by the outcome.

Obviously not following script, Chief Justice Ronald Castille voted with the three Democrats to force the Commission to come up with another plan.  Chief Justice Castille wanted to know why Amanda Holt developed a reapportionment plan that passes constitutional muster and the Commission could not.

The Reapportionment Commission reconvenes Thursday (April 12).  Will Amanda Holt’s plan be considered?

A study by Federal non-partisan General Accounting Office (Report No. 06-862, released in September, 2006) reviewed Medicaid spending in all 50 states during fiscal year 2005.  Total spending that year was over $305 billion to care for about 56 million claimants.  The GAO researchers contend $39.7 billion (13 per cent) of the total amount of claims paid that year by Medicaid should have either not been paid at all or paid by another (private) insurer.

 

 

Of the $15.9 billion in Medicaid claims paid that year by PA Department of Welfare, the GAO said $2.5 billion or 16 per cent was wrongfully paid.

 

 

As studies on government waste go, this is one of the largest (dollar-wise) to NEVER see the light of day.  The GAO study has been ignored to at least some extent or entirely in all 50 states.

 

 

These numbers are sufficient to get headlines, then action, but the conclusion that a full solution entails businesses paying more for employee health insurance must have been a certain non-starter.

 

 

The GAO study agreed that some of the waste was due to claimant fraud, but they didn’t stop there.  Some of the misspent funds were also attributed to errors on the part of providers, both accidentally and on purpose.

 

 

Then came the “zinger” that no one seems to want to touch.

 

 

Some claims should not have been paid by Medicaid at all.  A typical example occurs when father and mother are separated or divorced.  Mother takes child to emergency room and – even though husband may have children covered on his health insurance at work – she whips out the Medicaid card to satisfy the claim.  The Medicaid card is processed more quickly with far less hassle.

 

 

Provider prefers to bill Medicaid because getting paid is virtually guaranteed. For the doctor or hospital, a private insurance card is considered a “crap shoot” when the claimant is a low income individual.   If the Medicaid system were to be re-designed to catch these “mispayments,” hundreds of millions of dollars in PA claims would become the responsibility of private insurers.  Your employer, however, would pay more for your insurance as the cost of employee claims increased.

 

 

Three years ago experienced claims scrubbers offered to review PA Medicaid books.  There would be no upfront cost or other financial risk to the state.  The company was looking for a percentage of the reclaim as its payment for services.

 

 

The Rendell administration, apparently knowing the Republicans were not going to complain, pretended it didn’t understand and that current claim audits were finding all the bad pays.  Former Welfare Secretary Estelle Richman told representatives of the company seeking the claims audit that her people had found all the improperly paid claims the year before and returned over $125 million to taxpayers.

 

 

This rate of findings, if true, would have set a new record for efficiency for any US health insurance program, public or private.  She said $125 million was all that was found wrong, the GAO claimed $2.5 billion should not have been paid.

 

 

Richman didn’t have to be correct, because she had the last word.

 

 

Her managerial expertise in the Rendell government apparently attracted headhunters in the Obama administration.  In 2009 Richman resigned her Harrisburg appointment to accept an even more responsible job in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

 

 

Present PA Governor Tom Corporate has shown the same level of interest in reclaiming and stopping improper payouts as his predecessor.  His approach of just making less money available for welfare is more appealing to the business interests that put him in office.

 

 

Admittedly, there is no guarantee that reclaim results would meet projections if the state were to objectively review ongoing Welfare operations on behalf of all taxpayers.  Highmark administers Medicaid claims for PA Department of Welfare.  Highmark is the largest insurer of private employer plans in the state.

 

 

If asked, Highmark would almost certainly deny improper payments or conflict of interest.

 

 

Would Highmark make its claim records available to an independent review?  Most likely not.  In Pennsylvania “too big to fail” also means “too big to comply.”

Unfortunately, connecting dots between Grover Norquist and the St. Anthony Bridge carrying I-35W traffic over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis is too easy.

Norquist is the lobbyist who developed the “no-tax” pledge for politicians to sign.  Pledge signers promise to keep the government from never to imposing new taxes or increase the revenue of existing ones.  Even closing loopholes is a “no-no” because of the importance of the rich remaining rich.

In the 112th Congress, Grover’s “Americans for Tax Reform” claims 238 House members (a majority) and 41 Senators (enough to block legislation) have signed the pledge.  Another 1,249 state lawmakers and 13 governors have also made the public commitment.  PA chief executive Tom Corbett was an early signer.

During a busy August lunch hour in 2007, the St. Anthony Bridge collapsed into the river, killing 13 and injuring over 100.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty claimed inspections in 2005 and 2006 found no structural problems.  The Minneapolis Star-Tribune however found documents showing the bridge “was rated as structurally deficient . . . and possibly in need of replacement.”  In 2005 Pawlenty vetoed a bipartisan package that would have committed $8 billion to public transportation over ten years.

In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers released a survey showing that 160,570 (about 27 per cent) of the nation’s 590,750 bridges were rated “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.”  About 5,000 of those falling down bridges, as well as 8,000 miles of crumbling roads, are Pennsylvania problems,

Everyone admits there is no plan showing roads and bridges can be properly maintained with just existing revenues.  This battle is not limited to taxation.  Often the case, there are other issues in play.

Republicans see this funding mechanism as a way to crush labor unions.  Money for construction, they claim, goes further when prevailing wage clauses are waived. This would permit contractors to hire non-union workers.  Apparently, motorists cool with bridge contracts always awarded to the lowest bidder, will also tolerate cheaper migrant labor.

Some Republicans also would like to see privatization in public transit agencies.  Huge profits await “entrepreneurs” who hire non-union bus drivers to run city routes.  The only untouchable is the cost of road and bridge materials because that is “free market stuff.”

Transportation funding is the next great fiscal crisis that cannot be solved as long as gridlocked partisanship rules.  With more efficient vehicles, less gasoline is purchased and taxes collected.

The Feds will likely renew their public transportation funding program which expires at the end of March.  Coming at the 11th hour, the new bill will be inadequate.  Tea Party legislators want funding switched from the current 80% Federal to higher sharing by states.  Speaker John Boehner blames his failure to get a good bill through the House to the elimination of “earmarks.”  There were almost 6,400 in the last omnibus highway bill in 2007.

Reportedly, the White House wants to make up the shortage with cuts in defense spending.  Citizens are comforted knowing major national policy will be decided by dueling campaign checkbooks of the highway lobby against the military-industrial complex.

Gov. Corbett empaneled some of his campaign contributors into a transportation commission last year.  Deviating from their true purpose, members came up with good ideas.  Corbett has shelved the commission’s findings until he figures a way to pay for them and still keep his pledge.

A rural public administrator – someone really down the transportation food chain --asked us to look into this financial crisis.  His mini-buses haul little old ladies to doctor appointments.

Emperor Norquist and his disciples know they risk a repeat of the Minneapolis bridge collapse.  Why be concerned about shortening an elderly life because she couldn’t get to her doctor?   She probably never wrote a campaign check anyway.

The passage of Gov. Corbett’s 175-page, 48,000 word drilling bill allows the Marcellus Shale industry to pay less and to rape and pillage more here than in any other state.  Shell Oil would have considered this in deciding to locate its ethylene cracking plant in Beaver County.

Shell wants to use the natural gas in a process that will result in various plastics.  If the gas producer pays less for gas mined in PA (including taxes and fees), more is left for profits.  GOP leaders in Harrisburg do point to a first year tab to the drillers of $216 million, all of it earmarked for costs associated with the process.

By comparison, West Virginia will reap a first year income of over $1 billion.  Some of that will pay for educating the technicians that will need to be hired to mine the gas, shape the plastic and every function in-between.

In Pennsylvania, these costs will be borne by other businesses and John Q. Public since the drillers are getting a free ride.

Corbett and his Republican henchmen didn’t stop with cheap drilling fees.

They are apparently willing to risk a public health epidemic to protect the industry from assuming responsibilities similar to what nearly all other businesses risk for the havoc they create.

That’s the contention of Dr. Bernard Goldstein, emeritus professor in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, and his graduate assistant Jill Kriesky.  Writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they claim legislators (and the Governor) are not protecting citizens.

They create a scenario where a child might incur an illness caused by long-term exposure to a proprietary fracking chemical near a drill site.  According to PA’s new law, the drilling company need not divulge information about the chemical until the child’s physician signs a legally-binding non-disclosure agreement.  The driller can also withhold information about any other chemical agents which might be set loose by the process even if they are toxic.

Examples the writers used included “arsenic, barium, brine components and radioactive compounds dissolved in flowback water.”

Because the bill absolves the drillers of any legal responsibility, we must hope the companies will take the right steps.  Doctors will have to resolve the quandary of complying with their oath and possibly going to jail as a result.

The companies will not get away Scot free.  However, more likely, the law will require a longer, more tedious and more expensive path to holding drillers accountable.  By that time these upstanding business people will have abandoned the site, bankrupted the companies and moved on.

Patrick Henderson came to the defense of Gov. Corbett whom he serves as energy executive in a subsequent penning in the Post-Gazette.

Henderson said Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission considered public health impacts.  One of its four work groups was devoted exclusively to public health and environmental protection.

“Water supplies are further protected by increasing the distance at which a driller would be presumed responsible for polluting a water source unless he could show his well was not to blame.  Higher quality replacement water could be required should an aquifer be harmed,” he wrote.

This defense or rebuttal differed somewhat from what an industry lobbyist said at a presentation she made before the Greenville (PA) Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.  Mary Styn, a long time regional staffer with former US Senator Arlen Specter, now works for “Pennsylvania Energy Citizens,” an IRS 501c(4) organization currently extolling the virtues of natural gas drilling. 

When asked about the bill’s lack of protection for public health, she responded with “Bills are never perfect their first time through.  We’ll clean that up on the second or third go-around.”

Democrats raised a fuss about how cheap drilling fees will be in PA because of the new law.  If cautions about public health hazards were raised before adoption, they were in whispers.  Then again, find a Democrat legislator who read the entire bill.

Gov. Corbett’s actions have helped create hundreds of new jobs that can feed our kids now and maybe kill them later.  That’s his Party’s scheme of business and the environment in co-existence.

Get ready Western Pennsylvania motorists to pay a dime more per gallon for already high-priced gasoline this summer than our eastern Ohio neighbors.

Bloomberg Businessweek got to that conclusion in last week’s edition.

The last of three Philadelphia area refineries is likely to close this year after attempts to sell all of them were unsuccessful.  Repairs that would not be economical will not be made.  These refineries process crude that comes from overseas.  Refineries serving the Midwest use North American crude that is cheaper due to transportation costs.

Efforts by political leaders to keep Sunoco’s Marcus Hook refinery open will fail.  Government no longer tells big business what to do in the oligarchy that is the US in 2012.  Oligarchy is a government in which a small group exercises control often for corrupt and selfish purposes, according to Merriam-Webster.

Supply is not short and demand is not high, but gas prices are already headed to record highs.   We know this because futures traders have already run up prices for crude oil.  This is an outcome of America’s twisted new version of the “free market.”  In this system speculators are allowed to buy something next week, next month or next year with the price having no connection to value.   The producer knows what the commodity price is in advance and adjusts output and/or costs accordingly.

The only loser is the consumer and it wasn’t always that way.

Government actually controlled the price of gasoline from 1971 to 1973.  That was when Richard Nixon was President and the Republican Party last held consumers in higher priority.  When demand exceeded supply in late 1973 and 1974, Nixon even printed rationing stamps, but they were never used.

Today our government is controlled by political leaders who regard the money-short consumer at the lowest priority.   Republicans are busy grinding out new tax breaks for the businesses that own them.  The Obama administration see high gas prices as collateral damage in its demand for renewable energy sources.

Other industrialized nations arrived at the point of high gasoline prices earlier, for a higher purpose and with a better method.  Their populaces believe the goal was due to a high spirit of nationalism.  We condemn that practice as socialism.

While gasoline is a quarter lower in Russia, a buck higher in China, almost double in Brazil and Japan and nearly $9 per gallon in Italy.  These countries decided almost a half century ago they would not be held hostage by sheiks and terrorists.

While we control costs by bribing brutal dictators -- and sometimes go to war when that fails -- the other countries were setting the retail price of gasoline at a price much higher than here.  They didn’t pay anymore for the product but the fixed higher price served three important purposes.

High prices made demand for vehicles with better fuel consumption.  The wholesale to retail spread was imposed as a tax to pay for better roads, bridges, railroads, airports, etc.

Finally, the high cost of gasoline encouraged people to live where they work.  Our towns suffer more blight because we drive back to our homes in the suburbs when our shift ends.  A French TV documentary crew once told me they worked and lived in Paris and did not even own cars.  Government bikes are loaded in racks throughout the city, free to borrow for transportation to the next rack.

Our entire post-war economy was based on cars and trucks, the bigger and more gas guzzling, the better.  Detroit ruled our lives until Volkswagen showed they could be wrong about the consumer.

A reader has requested we comment on the current public transportation funding crisis.  Higher gasoline prices guarantee this morass will also continue as we will explore in the future.