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Warmongering and foreign interference in Pennsylvania?

Never one to miss a staged photo opportunity with the media, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Sen. Bob Casey in Scranton. While there, in an unprecedented and disturbing manner, Shapiro was pictured with a sinister grin signing an artillery round that will be used to kill people with whom the United States is not at war. For me, as a combat veteran and chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, Shapiro’s photo opportunity is disturbing. It brings thoughts of yet another elite politician ...

Small businesses languish as IRS botches tax credit

When the Pennsylvania state and local governments forced businesses to shut their doors and turn away customers during the pandemic, businesses did it. When the federal government asked businesses to keep employees on payroll to avoid waves of mass layoffs, businesses did that too. But that doesn’t mean it was easy—businesses lost money and some never reopened. Those who weathered the storm were forced to take loans from local banks, borrow money from family, or dip into their personal savings to keep members of their communities employed. Despite everyone’s best efforts, over ...

Rate cut should boost confidence

Last week, the Federal Reserve delivered its first rate cut since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, reductions in the fed funds rate have occurred in response to slowing economic activity, falling inflation, or external shocks like the dot-com bubble burst, the global financial crisis, or the pandemic. This time is different. After succeeding at bringing inflation down and restoring balance in the labor market, the Fed is acting to preserve a ‘soft landing’. While headline inflation has eased, partly due to improvements in supply chain issues, core inflation has ...

How the Shapiro administration doubled the cost of broadband

The digital divide – the gap between communities with and without access to high-speed internet – is a prominent issue in Pennsylvania. More than 330,000 Pennsylvania households, businesses, and community institutions lack broadband. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry (L&I), under Gov. Josh Shapiro’s leadership, has doubled the cost of broadband development with regulatory red tape –leaving many communities in the digital dust. L&I now faces dozens of broadband expansion projects awarded under the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority’s ...

One of these things is not like the other

The contrast between the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Republican National Convention (RNC) couldn’t be more stark. Even once you get past the overall feeling of joy as opposed to gloom, the differences are staggering. The DNC was a group of shiny, happy people while the RNC crowd bore a striking resemblance to the mob that stormed Frankenstein’s castle with pitchforks. First, let’s look at the speakers. The Democrats’ roster read like “Who’s Who” while the Republican’s list was more like “Who?”. The RNC’s star was Hulk Hogan; the DNC’s was Oprah ...

The doctor can’t see you now

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, became law in 2010 and provisions from the legislation began in 2014. The overall goal of the law was to provide health insurance to an increased number of Americans. To accomplish this, Obamacare created an expansion of Medicaid to include able-bodied 18 to 64 year olds and also established a health insurance exchange with premiums subsidized by taxpayers. Obamacare has many provisions, many of which have been controversial. The law requires every adult to own health insurance, forces every health insurance company to include costly “essential ...