Gov. Tom Corbett is taking a page from the gang at ‘Animal House.’ When things look their bleakest, there is only one thing to do.
Road Trip.
Corbett will be in Chester County and Philly today as he starts the process of selling the key items in the budget address he rolled out on Tuesday.
It might be best if he does not cross paths with Wendell Young IV. The boss of the United Food and Commercial Workers union was one of my guests on our live-stream show ‘Live From the Newsroom’ last night. If you missed the show, you can catch the replay here.
Young represents the workers in those 600 state stores that Corbett wants to shut down while he looks to sell 1,200 licenses to private retailers to sell booze in Pennsylvania. As you might guess, Young is not a big fan of that plan. And he has not changed his tune one bit since Corbett added a new wrinkle to the mix, taking $1 billion off the top of that revenue bonanza and sinking it into the state public education system.
Ironically, my other guest, Haverford School Board member Larry Feinberg, who also runs the Keystone State Education Coalition, voiced similar concerns. Feinberg said he knows of no local school officials who are banking on a windfall from the sale of the liquor system because of all the uncertainty surrounding the plan. He said the state would be better served by coming up with a better, fairer way to fund education.
Not only has Young not changed his mind, he’s ready to turn up the heat on the governor.
Young sees something else in play in the governor’s new ploy. Desperation. Young believes Corbett’s ratings are so bad it’s now led him to marry his liquor privatization plan with education funding. He also added another word in describing the governor's push: Disingenuous.
If Corbett was looking for a big bump in his ratings after his budget address, he’s going to be disappointed. A new Franklin & Marshall Poll out today indicate an overwhelming majority of those in the state are unhappy with the governor’s job performance. Just 26 percent of registered voters believe he is doing a good job.
Young should not smile too much, however.
That same poll continues to indicate a majority of state residents - 53 percent - would like to see the state get out of the booze business.
Corbett has a tough task ahead of him. His budget is based on three huge initiatives without which the whole thing collapses.
Our editorial takes a look at the governor’s budget plan.
My thanks to both Wendell Young and Larry Feinberg for doing the show last night.
We don’t agree on how liquor should be sold in Pennsylvania, but we do agree on this. The governor’s move to tie that push to education funding seems like the cynical move of a sitting governor whose ratings are in the tank and who is looking at an ugly re-election battle.
There are those who believe Corbett’s budget address could also have been used as the kickoff for his re-election campaign.
And so he has hit the road. It promises to be a bumpy ride.
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