Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

Governor Corbett

/

Teachers’ Union Opposes Corbett’s New Pension Plan

Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed pension reform package, which calls for new employees to be enrolled in a 401(k) and current employees to see some changes in the way their pensions are calculated, is being met with fierce, but predictable opposition from state teacher unions.

The governor maintains his proposals, which include lowering a multiplier used to calculate the pensions of current employees, will stanch the bleeding of the pension debt, which now hovers at around $41 billion, and shift the liability for pensions away from the state in much the way corporate America has done.

Without the pension reform, the governor said, deep cuts eventually will have to be made to the general fund budget and core programs and services in the state.

Read more.

/

Why Governor Corbett’s Decision on State Exchanges Was the Right One

Governor Corbett said ‘no’ to a state health exchange in PA yesterday.  Here’s why this is a good decision:  If a state does not set up an exchange, the federal government will come in and set it up, according to the law. So far, 22 states have said they are not going to set up state exchanges. Only six states have received conditional approval from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to operate their own exchanges.

Why leave it up to the federal government? Well, to begin with, it’s an extremely costly undertaking. Heritage health care experts Nina Owcharenko and Ed Haislmaier explain:

[T]here will be no steady flow of federal dollars to the states. The law specifies that starting in 2015, any state implementing a state exchange must develop its own revenue source to fund the exchange’s annual operations. That puts the long-term costs squarely on the states. Moreover, the recent announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that it will levy a 3.5 percent administrative fee on coverage sold through the federally run exchanges indicates there are significant costs if a state agrees to run its own exchange.

And what would be in it for them? Certainly not increased control over how the exchanges are run. Owcharenko and Haislmaier explain that “regulations promulgated by HHS allow states no meaningful flexibility or advantage by operating their own exchanges, relative to a federal exchange. Those states would simply be acting as vendors to HHS.”

Read more.

/

Governor Corbett at PA Press Club

THE FISCAL CLIFF: Fresh off a meeting of the National Governors Association, where the combination of mandatory spending cuts and tax increases was a topic of discussion, Corbett said he finds the prospect “frightening,” because it means the potential loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal support as he and his staff draw up a budget for FY 13-14. The mandatory tax increases included in the budget-balanciing act could trigger another recession, he warned.

MEDICAID EXPANSION:  Corbett spun out three scenarios for the expansion of coverage mandated in the federal healthcare act: No expansion; limited expansion (100 percent of federal poverty level) and total expansion (coverage to 130 percent of poverty). If everyone eligible for coverage sought it, it would cost the state $134 million in FY 13-14. A limited expansion would cost $178 million and full expansion would run to almost $222 million in the next budget year, growing to $4.7 billion by 2021, he warned. Social service and Medicaid spending comprises about 39 percent of the current budget.

Read more of the topics he covered here.