It’s a tale of two outlooks. A tale of two different priorities. Of two different types of leaders.
Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick invited the President, much of his cabinet and almost 3 dozen of America’s top corporate executives from technology, energy, manufacturing, finance and workforce development to collaborate at his “Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit.”
The focus: America — not China — must win the battle to develop and use artificial intelligence. And Pennsylvania should lead the way to this new economy, with more natural gas energy than Saudi Arabia has oil, technology hubs, nuclear, coal and hydro-powered plants, and countless universities and trade schools.
Before they left, the President and his cabinet pledged to do everything they could with policies and regulatory support. Executives pledged to work cooperatively and focused on that vision. And over $92 billion was publicly committed for specific technology and energy projects. That’s just the start.
A freshman senator with business, military, and government experience looked at the technology challenges and opportunities facing America and our state, looked at our existing assets and set forth a vision and a plan to do it. America’s best and brightest came to Pittsburgh and said: “yes!”
Contrast this with Harrisburg. For the third time in three years, Pennsylvania doesn’t have a budget on time. For the third year in a row, Governor Shapiro is trying to spend more money than we have in revenue. For the third year in a row, he pushes “fixes” to allow him to spend more than we have: raise taxes, create new taxes and borrow from our savings.
The GOP-led State Senate is opposed to spending more than we have, raising taxes, and borrowing to fill Shapiro’s debt.
That’s the story of the last three years — and, frankly, for far too long.
A state that’s old and getting older — the fifth highest percentage of seniors. (Florida beats us because seniors actually move there.) A state with a stagnant population. We were third when I was born; now fifth. We were sixth after the 2010 census and only slipped back into fifth because Illinois fails more.
Harrisburg deals in the short-term. Budget by budget. Governors create new taxes to fill the shortfalls because we are old and too poor. And they “have to” offer taxpayer funded assistance to more and more citizens. All too often, governors try to keep or attract companies by giving them money: “how much do we have to bribe you to stay here or come here?”
Pennsylvania elected officials have all too often been short-sighted, miss the bigger picture, and rarely think big.
Under Governor Ed Rendell, it became clear that Pennsylvania was sitting on a huge amount of natural gas — and engineers learned how to get to it. When Governor Tom Corbett arrived, it was crystal clear that “huge” was really huge. Just like discovering oil in Venango County a century earlier, Pennsylvania had the chance to lead and create almost unlimited jobs.
Yet the talk in Harrisburg: “we should create a new tax and make sure ‘we make money’ off of this.”
Politicians anxious to spend money tried to create a tax for this brand new industry — to raise short-term dollars rather than grow the industry and make billions. (Almost $4 billion last year alone.) Fortunately, Corbett and Lt. Governor Jim Cawley convinced the legislature to avoid strangling that new industry with short-sighted taxes. (Author’s note; I was Cawley’s Chief of Staff.)
In 2012, word was floating around the capital that Amazon was looking to construct warehouses across Pennsylvania — not only because of the large population, but because we are the “Keystone State” with access to much of America by truck, rail and boat.
What was the response from legislators? Meet with Amazon and see what they needed? Nope. Reach out to local officials to see what locations our state could market to Amazon? Nope!
Legislators introduced a bill to create a “warehouse tax.”
Shapiro is the chief of short-sightedness. First, he’s pushing to impose a huge tax on video quiz games you find in VFW halls, bars and sandwich shops, and wants to legalize and tax recreational marijuana to “make money.”
Plus, of course, he wants to expand taxpayer funded programs to more and more people who fell behind during the Biden/Harris inflation years.
Shamelessly, Shapiro actually attended the Summit — to get campaign photo-ops.
What he forgot to mention is that he’s fighting before the Supreme Court to unilaterally tax Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry (punishing them for “climate change”), and then take that money to pay consumers back for the inevitably higher gas rates he’ll cause — and subsidize wind-turbines. Plus, he’s slow-rolling permits to build, expand, and modernize our natural gas pipes. As a result, too much gas sits underground or is shipped by rail cars.
That’s short-sightedness coupled with left-wing ideology — and the chutzpah to fly to the Summit for the photo ops.
Two different visions: economic growth — with Pennsylvania leading the nation — versus more taxes, legalized pot, and more handouts.
Two different leadership styles: boldness and collaboration, versus: “get me through this budget so I can go to Iowa and campaign without any headaches.”
McCormick offers a new way for Pennsylvania: for leaders to lead. But much of what was discussed at the Summit needs a Governor and legislature willing to be bold, with commonsense legislation and regulations.
Florida wasn’t always Florida 2025. Nor was North Carolina, nor Austin, Texas. It took leadership and boldness.
Is Harrisburg ready? If not, are we ready to demand it?
Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation. The former Chief of Staff to the Chairman of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley), he writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy at @PaSuburbsGuy.
