Gov. Josh Shapiro, fresh off a resounding re-election victory last week, appears to be setting two priorities for his second term: raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $15 an hour (a 100 percent-plus increase) and higher, more dedicated funding for mass transit.
“Raising the minimum wage is going to make us more competitive and it’s going to create economic opportunity,” Shapiro has said. And, “Mass transit is a lifeline for people in all 67 counties who rely on it every day to get to where they need to go,” he has written.
And with both chambers of the General Assembly controlled by fellow Democrats, he’s likely to see both goals met.
More’s the pity given the facts on the ground.
Raising the minimum wage will make us less competitive and retard economic opportunity, resulting in fewer entry-level jobs and jobs in general (hurting minorities the most) while raising consumer costs and even driving businesses with the thinnest of thin margins out of business.
And as far as mass transit goes, there’s no talk of reining in out-of-whack cost structures that are endemic to the unionized monopoly that makes government public transit an economic dog that won’t hunt.
We can’t wait to see how Shapiro & Co. try to rationalize the job losses of the former and what surely will be the ever-expanding costs of the latter.
This is “progressivism” incarnate. But it’s the furthest thing possible from anything resembling “progress.” And it’s certainly not prudence.
By the way, a local media columnist, referencing the Democrats’ incoming complete control of Harrisburg, writes thusly:
“There’s no more time to wait and no better time to strike: Pittsburgh’s civic leaders, from public and private sectors, must come together right now to generate a bold vision that could alter the region’s course for decades to come.”
But just about everything the commentator appears to embrace involves raising existing taxes or establishing new taxes.
Finding a tax to fund the high-cost, low-service of the likes of Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
Increasing the hotel tax.
Increasing the local sales tax.
Doubling the local services tax.
Establishing an unearned income tax.
“And broader changes to the Local Tax Enabling Act and other state laws [that] could unlock even broader tax powers,” the columnist writes.
Tax, tax, tax, tax, tax — then tax still more.
It would be apropos at this point to employ the “Will the last person to leave Pittsburgh please turn out the lights” cliché.
But that would be a moot entreaty, given that the lights, for all practical purposes, already are out.
Such a tax-and-spend mentality isn’t “leadership.” It’s merely the same old pimps for progress – theirs and their acolytes, not yours – engaging in the latest smash-and-dash operation to abscond with the public’s jewels, public weal be damned.
Put another way, “INCOMING!”
Speaking of mass transit, the Tribune-Review reports that “renovations to the Amtrak Latrobe station that will make the train platform more accessible for passengers are about a year behind schedule and may not be completed until fall 2027.”
And, because of the prolonged construction, the station has no access to certain amenities and services such as pay phones, restrooms, the ticket office, the waiting room and the water fountain. And there’s no wheelchair access or wheelchair lift available.
Renovations were supposed to be completed this past summer. But officials are blaming the fact that the work “is immediately adjacent to active Norfolk Southern freight tracks [which owns and shares the trackage with Amtrak], so crews and equipment must regularly clear the area for passing trains, which limits the amount of productive work time available.”
Additionally, a project estimated to cost $1.7 million when priced in December 2023 now will balloon to $15 million upon supposed completion a year from now.
And all this as Amtrak prepares to bow a second daily train on the route this month, with supposedly high (but highly questionable) hopes for increased passenger traffic.
Yep, sounds like another government job to us – complete with even more cost-hiking prevailing wages — protected by the government monopoly that passenger train service long has been.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
