Hunger Awareness Month: PA’s budget can protect education, vital services if we “grow the pie”

Yesterday dozens of activists convened in Pennsylvania’s capitol to send a message to legislators to put human interests above special interests.

As the June 30th deadline for a state budget draws near, Harrisburg was filled with the urgent voices of advocates, the disabled, union members, as well as teachers and young school students aiming to be heard above the loud voice that corporate money wields.

The advocacy day was organized by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and the Better Choices for Pennsylvania Coalition, calling for a better budget through raising new revenue from a severance tax, a tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers, and other sources. Just Harvest staff and clients drove to Harrisburg to attend the “Grow the Pie” rally, calling for the state budget to be increased to cover all needed support and investments – education, health care, and human services – rather than leaving Pennsylvania’s citizens with crumbs.

With that in mind, Better Choices members hand-delivered 253 pies to every member of the General Assembly to urge them to “grow the pie” to avoid the cuts in critical services that will be necessary if PA’s General Assembly fails to close a $1.5 billion budget gap.

One of our clients, Linda Davis, stressed to the lawmakers we met with that low-income older folks like herself have worked all of their lives and now that they’re retired have nothing to show for it. Cuts to services to people in her situation – where she’s actually having to choose between buying food and paying for her diabetes medication – are just cruel.

Which begs the question: What would a better PA budget look like – one that puts people first, not corporations? State representative Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks County) has created an alternative budget that aims to “invest in programs that grow the economy and create jobs by raising new revenue” and “puts families first in a responsible, sustainable approach to the budget.” 

His “Roadmap for a Stronger Pennsylvania” would increase revenues by:

• accepting the federal government’s offer to completely cover the cost of expanding Medicaid to provide health insurance to half a million low-income working families,
• creating a severance tax on natural-gas drillers and a tax on smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes
• closing corporate tax loopholes,
• freezing the capital stock and franchise tax,
• fully enforcing sales taxes from Internet sales, and
• improving our State Store liquor system instead of privatizing it.

DiGirolamo says his budget would increase – rather than cut or hold neutral, as Gov. Corbett’s proposed budget would do – funds for education programs, the Human Services Development Fund, health care programs, the attorney general’s drug task force, veterans’ housing assistance, and emergency drug and alcohol treatment.

Whether or not you share these particular priorities, you would likely agree that Pennsylvania can’t afford even more of what prior slash-and-burn budgets have brought about: 20,000 laid-off educators, cut programs, and closed schools;  hundreds of thousands without health care; dismantled programs for the elderly and disabled; laid off police officers and firefighters; diminished funding for environmental protection. Surely homeowners’ rising property taxes should earn them more in government services, not less.

And a budget that invests in the state’s citizens, their education, and lifting them up rather than bringing them to their knees, is smart as well as kind – it helps the state’s economy.

Tonight you may receive a call from Just Harvest volunteers trying to get the word out about these cuts and connecting you to leave a message with your legislator’s office. Please take their call. In one minute, you can make the difference we need.