July 12, 2024
Welcome back, good friends, to the show that never ends. Well, it actually DID end, mercifully, late yesterday evening (June 41st), when General Assembly leaders and Gov. Josh Shapiro celebrated the passage of the 2024/2025 fiscal year budget. The tidy little plan clocks in at about $47.6 billion, roughly a 6% increase over last year. And with that, members of the House and Senate bolted from Harrisburg to get about the business of getting re-elected, or in some cases, grabbing a cold sarsaparilla and a nap.
The new budget comes in strong for public schools ($1.1 billion in new cash), economic development (tax credits and plenty of new cash incentives), and other bric-a-brac you can read about here. If you subscribed to our content streams you would have a total rundown by now, but membership does have its privileges and we ain’t in the business of giving it all away.
If you, like us, spend an inordinate amount of time digesting state government news, first of all, seek help. Second, you really should follow Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso (and intern Trebor Maitin!). Stephen is the most indefatigable Capitol reporter since the late Pete DeCoursey roamed the hallways, scaring the crap out of elected officials.
And lest you are one of the skeptics who believes that your state government doesn’t do anything, there was an absolute flurry (not furry, they were in Pittsburgh) of legislation flying back and forth between chambers over the past 10 days. Solar panels for schools, new scholarships for Pennsylvania college students, performance-based budgeting for higher education, mass transit money, and much, much more.
Drivers of electric vehicles will see a $200 bill (increased to $250 the following year) in the mail starting next year to make up for what they don’t pay in gas taxes, damned scofflaws that they are. Everybody who drives, pays. Except for crime. Crime never pays.
Pharmacy benefit managers will see a raft of new accountability and transparency measures under a law signed yesterday, an issue largely driven by small, independent pharmacies that were closing their doors at an alarming pace. When we were growing up, our local pharmacy served milkshakes and malted milk balls, which we think would have solved the whole damned problem in the first place. Every reputable economist knows that milkshakes = profitability.
Meanwhile, blighted malls may soon be a thing of the past as the legislature created a new mixed-use grant program for their redevelopment, thanks to some artful work by some folks who work here. We hate to toot our own horn, but hey… TOOOOOT!
And after the dust settles, Governor Shapiro is off to the Poconos to kick off the Great American Getaway 400 at our favorite place, Pocono Raceway (SHAMELESS CLIENT PLUG INCOMING!) Come join the governor and Team Triad at the Tricky Triangle!
While Governor Shapiro does his victory laps, President Joe Biden finally got some good news as last month marked the first time since the pandemic that retail prices actually fell. Biden may have finally begun to slay the inflation beast, but it may be for naught as some of his allies keep shoving him toward the fire escape, or the nearest cliff.
Biden is also one step closer to cementing a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which will be summarily ignored because he will stumble around and call Hamas “Llamas” and the press will lose its shit and call for him to be impeached.
The federal courts have hit the pause button on Biden’s LNG export pause, which may be the most puzzling thing he could have done whilst in a dead heat with Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Say what you want about Trump (and many have), it is not really a secret where he stands on natural gas.
In fact, the former president is gonna be in Butler County this weekend, and we have suspicion that he MIGHT just mention Grandpa Joe’s position on natural gas. And stolen elections and the Justice Department, but mainly natural gas. And Hunter Biden.
Speaking of energy, there are rumblings that the owners of the fabled Three Mile Island nuclear plant have some fission on their minds, and may seek to restart the reactors there, or at least the one that works. And with that official announcement will come a slew of activists chaining themselves to the fence (paging Gene Stilp.)
A new report card was released this week on the health of the Chesapeake Bay, and the old girl clocked in with her best score since the Ice Age. Not since our junior year of college was so much celebrating done over a C+. The Bay was drunk from partying for three straight days.
The sale of U.S. Steel to Japanese steelmaker Nippon is getting close to final, and man alive, are the old Yinzers fired up about it. It’s almost like Japan and the United States haven’t been close allies for the past 80 years. We suspect if Nippon were a Canadian company there would be a helluva lot less noise.
And in what has become a regular occurrence, new voter registration data were released this week, showing that Independents are the fastest-growing new voter cohort, and it isn’t really even close. So as summer kicks into gear and the two political tribes in this country fight like two ally cats in a burlap sack, remember: the Indies ain’t going away. And if they stand together, boy can they be the you-know-what in y’all’s punch bowls.
Because we were busy doing budget-y things the past week, there was no Happy Hour last Friday and hence, you probably didn’t congratulate our own Olivia Rindfuss on being named to the 40 Under 40 superstar list. But now you know, so get to it!
In our We Can’t Make This Up segment, we take you to Ohio, where a suspected murderer is now on the loose because of a typo by a clerk at the courthouse where he was being held. Pro tip: we don’t even send out the Friday Happy Hour without having an editor check it over. Maybe hold your arraignments to a similar procedure? One minute you are in D Block, the next you are at Dunkin Donuts.
That’s what passes for news around here, as our intrepid team is free at last! Well, until next week. Make hay while the sun shines, cats and kittens! Until next week, from all your friends at Team Triad, have a great weekend!