Published in the Daily Local News, Jim Callahan

September 25, 2014

Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley said the administration of Republican Gov. Tom Corbett deserves a second term to finish work started to make state government more accountable.

Cawley campaigned in Chester County Thursday for the ticket, visiting a senior center in Paoli and medical facility in Phoenixville before heading off to a Downingtown political fundraiser.

In a visit to the Daily Local News he said the administration has cut a $4.8 billion budget deficit over four years by “making tough choices” to control spending and not raising taxes in that time.

Cawley conceded that the administration should have done a better job explaining its efforts as it went along, but that it does not take away from accomplishments in making reforms on unemployment compensation, workers compensation, and tort reform.

The administration has been hard hit by criticism of education funding levels over the past four years, but the lieutenant governor said the facts support the Corbett administration’s record.

State funding for public education has increased by $1 billion to over $10 billion in the Corbett administration years, Cawley said.

Undermining all, however, is the inability to reach agreement on dealing with state pension costs, he said. The state contribution to pensions has increased $630 million in that time and threatens to swamp the ability of government to do anything else.

That money couldn’t go into classrooms, into highways, or into any other programs, he said.

Cawley rejected the notion that passing reform was the exclusive responsibility of the Republican Party, which controls both houses of the state legislature.

He said Republican legislators are elected by a wide diversity of constituents. He said it was unreasonable to expect the executive branch – governor – to be able to control them.

Not a single Democrat was willing to support a reform plan, he noted.

Cawley was chairman of a commission in 2011 that proposed laws to regulate the gas extraction industry in Marsellus Shale in the commonwealth that brought together industry representatives, environmental groups, and state and local government interests.

The natural gas industry extraction industry using new drilling technology has been created in less than a decade.

Cawley said the resulting 96 recommendations of his commission adopted in 2012 provided strong regulation and strict environmental standards.

A proposal by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Wolf to increase taxes on Marcellus Shale drilling to solve the state budget problem on education funding was viewed a bit cynically by Cawley, a former Bucks County commissioner and longtime public official.

“I’m struck that this is the new best way ‘to solve all our problems’,” he said.

He noted that under the administration of former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell that a proposal for slot machines at racetracks, and then casinos with table games was going “to solve all our problems.”

The money was quickly swallowed up, leaving continued criticism of the property tax burden on people to pay for education, he said.

Cawley said that the amount of money that could be raised by a 5 percent severance tax – the popular figure quoted – seems to change with the speaker. He said tax revenue ranges from $500 million to up to $2 billion. The figures were ridiculous, he said.

The lieutenant governor suggested – hypothetically, he emphasized – that if $750 million was raised from such a severance tax, that $630 million would be “swallowed up in our pension obligations.”

He again emphasized that without pension reform, the state will be able to do little.

Besides, he said, the gas drilling industry does pay taxes. He noted that since 2008, corporate income taxes to the state have totaled $2.3 billion. Funds to county and local governments in that time have totaled $638 million.

“They are already paying a substantial tax bill,” he said.

(Jim Callahan, "Lt. Gov. Cawley says Corbett has made tough calls," Daily Local News, 9/25/14)