Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro talks to his supporters during a visit during an event Saturday afternoon at Lycoming College. The governor made several stops in Centre, Clinton and Lycoming counties to connect with voters to drum up support for his re-election. DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

In a reelection campaign stop in Williamsport on Saturday, Gov. Josh Shapiro called on voters in this election cycle to “push back on the people that enable the chaos, corruption and cruelty,” among those whom he called “rubber stamps” for President Donald J. Trump.

Shapiro, in a 16-minute speech inside Pennington Lounge at Lycoming College, and later, in a one-on-one interview with the Sun-Gazette, noted it was the voters’ responsibility to help elect candidate Rachel Wallace, a Democrat looking to unseat U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Dallas, in the 9th Congressional District. Wallace was at the event.

“People like my opponent, (without naming Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity), people like those — your Congressman from this community (not naming Meuser), and some of the state reps and senators – so you’ve got to win the election and knock them out of office,” Shapiro said.

“Then,” he said, “you’ve got to put policies in place that actually improve people’s lives,” he said. “It is why I want to win (my race) and the (other) races and go out and raise the minimum wage, to put more money in people’s pockets,” he said.

Shapiro called, again, in his budget address for the legislature to pass a minimum wage increase from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour, with House Democrats passing a bill. As of early this month, however, the state Senate has not voted on the latest House-passed minimum wage bill (HB 2189), which proposes raising the state minimum wage to $15 by 2029. The House passed the bill on March 24, marking the third consecutive year they have passed similar legislation.

Shapiro told the Sun-Gazette he wanted to be reelected and see others win races, and then pass a massive investment plan to build more housing, so there is more housing available for Pennsylvanians.

“To me it is first about winning the election and stopping the chaos, cruelty and the corruption, and it is about policies that are going to make people’s lives better,” he said.

“I know that we are getting together here at a time when there’s a lot of darkness in the world,” Shapiro said to the larger group. “I am also mindful that it is at a time when it is hard to be a Democrat in Lycoming County,” he said.

The governor said his arrival had a two-fold purpose: To thank people for the work they are doing in a tough part of the country and, secondly, to make clear that “from this darkness we are going to see a whole lot of light if we each do our part to save our democracy, and that is a team effort.”

He said he was relying on those in the Pennington Lounge to be “teammates in that process.”

“Thank you for doing this work,” he said to a round of applause.

When he came a few years ago on a bus he said he had a lot of hope and optimism, and because Lycoming College is a school he would give those gathered a “report card.”

“I told you we were going to invest in our children’s education,” he said, highlighting additional funding for public education.

“We now have schools with smaller class sizes, universal free breakfasts — when our kids show up at school,” Shapiro said.

“We’re investing in hundreds more mental health counselors in our schools because our young people deserve to be physically healthy, and mentally healthy, and after 10 years of the numbers of teachers declining we now are seeing more teachers in our classrooms, and the number of teachers are growing all across Pennsylvania.”

“I made a pledge to hire 2,000 more police officers, and said we’d invest millions of dollars in violence prevention,” he said.

Over the past three and a half years, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency has provided more than $886 million in funding through nearly 6,000 grants across Pennsylvania to address and prevent violence in the state’s communities.

“Violent crime is down 12%, fatal gun violence is down 43%,” he said, adding “now you can open up a small business, buy a home, walk down the street with a whole lot less fear of crime in your neighborhood.”

Three and a half years ago, he promised: “We are going to make the changes necessary to grow our economy, including our communities that had been left behind and forgotten.”

“Three and a half years later, we’ve created more jobs than all but two states in the entire country. We are growing again, creating jobs,” he said.

“At the same time if you’ve got a job in the community but you can’t afford to live there that’s a problem,” he said.

“So, we brought people together – Democrats and Republicans — and we’ve been able to cut taxes seven times,” he said.

“Let me tell you what that looks like,” he said. “It means our seniors got their largest targeted tax cut in 20 years here in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Our small businesses saw their taxes go down three years in a row, and for the first time in 50 years we passed some progressive tax policy in Harrisburg,” he said.

“We brought Republicans over to our side and passed the first-ever working Pennsylvanians tax credit,” he said. “That means 9,500 people in Lycoming County alone are slated to get up to $800 back on their state taxes this year.”

That is people who are working, who are doing everything we asked of them, and, yet, they just need a few bucks to help them out, he said.

And, he noted, every time there is investment and job creation – the federal government is ripping it away.

“We’re cutting taxes to make things more affordable but at the same time they are going out and destroying our farmers,” he said.

Tariffs and a ‘war of choice’

“You go buy something online, you are paying more for it today because of those tariffs,” Shapiro said, squarely placing the blame on the president and the administration. “We are seeing our small businesses struggle because of those tariffs, before switching the subject to gasoline prices.

“Now, when you fill up at the pump you are paying $4.16 a gallon because of the war,” he said. “A war of choice that Donald Trump started . . . policies by Trump, supported by your Congressman, who is a rubber stamp for him,” he said. “Rachel (Wallace) is going to see to it that doesn’t happen,” he said, urging voters listening to put “someone in office who has the courage of her convictions to stand up for people from her community.”

These policies are hurting people, he noted, explaining how 120,000 Pennsylvanians in the first 10 weeks of this year lost their health care because of Trump and GOP-leadership and policies not to extend the Obamacare subsidies.

“And 310,000 of our neighbors are going to lose Medicaid this year because of the Big Beautiful Budget bill that they passed to give a tax cut to people at the highest income levels, who do not need a tax cut,” Shapiro said. “The way they paid for it was by knocking people off of their healthcare.”

About 140,000 people are going to lose SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program) benefits, he said, adding these are folks who are struggling just to put food on the table for their families.

“That’s cruelty, along with the chaos that he inflicts every day in our communities,” he said of the president.

“I came here today to thank you for being here and for your willingness to not just pull the covers up and turn off the TV and pretend that this isn’t happening but rather to appreciate the power that you have to make a change in the face of this chaos, this cruelty and this corruption,” Shapiro said.

“I am also here to tell you that the last thing we need in Harrisburg is a governor who is going to be a rubber stamp for all that Donald Trump wants to do,” he said, a reference to his Republican opponent.

“That is why I am running for reelection, at the same time we continue to get stuff done for Pennsylvania, and we’ve got our work cut out for us,” he said.

“I want you to know that as I embark on this reelection, wanting to be with all of you here today that it is not enough for me just win reelection and Austin Davis, my great lieutenant governor, to win reelection, but, instead, we need to make sure that we use our power here to win a trifecta in the state legislature,” Shapiro said.

— “Give me a Democratic majority in the House and in the Senate, I’ll raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.”

— “Give me a trifecta in Harrisburg, we will pass a sweeping housing action plan and build enough affordable housing for people in rural and in urban communities. Let’s get that done.”

— “We need a trifecta and we will pass legislation protecting our LGTBQ brothers and sisters who do not have the protection of our laws,” he said.

“That’s the work I want to do,” he said.

In addition to that, he said, he reminded those gathered there will be several competitive congressional races in Pennsylvania, “including this district.”

“We win all of those and put Democrats in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives,” he said. “You’ve got the power to do that — right here in Pennsylvania — right here in Lycoming County.”