News

The Rockefeller Institute of Government recently analyzed a Bureau of Labor Statistics report on jobs at this point in the recession. The report finds that with 9.2% unemployment, Pennsylvania is unsurprisingly keeping pace with the national rate of 9.5% unemployment. [Read More]

There seems to be some confusion in the media over the modified version of the Disclose Act and how it relates to unions. As The Hill reported last week: [Read More]

Senate Democratic leaders Thursday shelved their effort to cap greenhouse-gas emissions as part of a broad energy bill, putting aside indefinitely a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's ambitious effort to transform the way Americans produce and consume energy. [Read More]

Citizens United was a victory for free speech. The Disclose Act is a victory for Big Labor. uschamber.com/freespeech [Read More]

Democrats in the U.S. Senate, with the help of two Republicans, broke through a Republican filibuster Tuesday night on a bill to extend unemployment benefits. But the part of the legislation which would have included the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentages (FMAP) extension was left on the cutting room floor. [Read More]

You claim that voters “badly need” to know the donors to groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood or the Farm Bureau in order to — well, in order to what, exactly (“Filibusters for the Big Money,” editorial, July 11)? [Read More]

Everyone agrees the American job picture is a disaster. Unemployment estimates from June stretch from the official 9.5% to 16.5% to a sickening 22% by the most inclusive definition. Economists, politicians and pundits debate the reasons. You’re familiar with the arguments. [Read More]

Pennsylvania passed its budget this year on time for the first time in eight years, but a business lobbyist said it probably only set up a huge headache for the next governor and Legislature. Gene Barr, the vice president for Government Affairs for the Pennsylvania State Chamber of Commerce, told business officials Tuesday in an update session that several issues were pushed to the fall or next year. [Read More]

Among the many big-ticket issues competing for the Legislature’s attention in a financially challenging election year, Pennsylvania’s transportation funding crunch seems destined for the back of the bus. Lawmakers won’t reconvene until mid-September, leaving only weeks before they break for the final stretch of the election campaigns, and the prospect of any legislative activity after the Nov. 2 elections is cloudy at best. [Read More]

Pennsylvania lawmakers created a bomb for taxpayers in 2001 through a disastrous increase in public employee pension benefits that they justified with a false premise. Now they are like Wile E. Coyote, the hapless Looney Toons cartoon character, desperately and futilely attempting to extinguish the fuse that they, themselves, had lit. After giving themselves a 50 percent pension increase and bestowing 25 percent increases upon state employees and teachers, lawmakers said the largess would be government by investment earnings - just as investment markets tanked as the "tech bubble" popped. [Read More]