Eugene DePasquale lights the way for all state-level Democratic challengers in 2012:
The Allentown School District and 17 other cash-strapped schools would share in a $30 million pot of state grant money that would pay for tutoring, class-size reductions and full-day kindergarten, under a proposal that a central Pennsylvania lawmaker rolled out this morning [...]
DePasquale, who’s also seeking the Democratic nod for state Auditor General,wants to use some of the revenue raised from a severance tax on natural gas drillers to underwrite the grants. But lawmakers aren’t considering a severance tax and are unlikely to pass one even if they were [...]
When pressed on those political realities, DePasquale said he was within his rights to keep pushing for a severance tax. But he also said the state could carve money out of prison spending to provide the cash. The Department of Corrections makes up one leg of the Holy Trinity of the biggest cost-drivers in state government. Schools and welfare spending are the other two.
“Why is that one area of the budget sacrosanct while there is a falling crime rate?” DePasquale asked at a Capitol news conference, as he called on the administration and GOP majorities in the House and Senate to spend money on kids before they end up in jail.
On the policy, this is really great stuff. Tom Corbett and the Republicans cut aid to school districts in a deliberately regressive way. These 18 districts got hit unfairly hard last year, so this would make things more equitable.
The other great thing about this is that the severance tax is a very progressive tax. It’s essentially a transfer from gas companies and landowners who sold drilling rights on their land, to school children in the state’s poorest school districts.
As a matter of coalition politics, this proposal is genius. Teachers are on board (PSEA is already backing it, so there’s your labor support), and it’s also appealing to anti-fracking activists and environmentalists, social justice-oriented religious organizations, and political progressives.
John Micek is savvy as always on the issue of whether a left wing bill like this can pass the Republican-controlled legislature, but that’s beside the point.
The Democrats are fully an opposition party right now. Their job isn’t to help the Republicans govern, it’s to constantly be offering an alternative political agenda to the voters.
DePasquale is absolutely right to keep pushing for a severance tax. The Republicans are struggling to find the votes in their caucus to pass this weak local impact fee, and they’re probably counting on getting some Democratic support for it, since Democrats are for taxing fracking in a general.
The best thing that can happen for Eugene DePasquale, and for the Democratic Party, is for all Democrats to vote against the impact fee so that Democratic challengers can run on the severance tax in 2012. Whether the bill fails on a party-line vote or passes on a party-line vote, Democrats will be able to create a clear contrast in the 2012 elections.
(h/t John Micek)
DePasquale's promise to spread millions of Dollars around the Commonwealth is an attempt to buy votes for his upcoming election.
This is why we must insist that people step down from one seat before seeking another.
Seems to me like this is a necessary and worthwhile use of public funds that would address a real problem. If DePasquale's plan helps people, I guess they'll be inclined to vote for him, but isn't that how politics is supposed to work?
Its absolutely necessary and is something that Republicans never are: fiscally sound. A 10% tax means lower taxes for the rest of us. And a 10% tax will not dissuade drillers from drilling.