Shapiro’s Taxpayer-Funded Vanity Tour Rages On

Recent reporting exposed the Shapiro administration’s reliance on artificial intelligence to write its newly released Housing Action Plan.

And it’s no wonder Shapiro has outsourced his policy work to chatbots: He continues to devote more taxpayer-funded resources to promoting himself than to developing meaningful policies.

The disparity in the size and investment in his various internal departments is telling. Shapiro’s policy team comprises nine staff members, according to the state government staff directory.

Meanwhile, his communications, digital strategies, public affairs, and marketing teams house 19 staffers, making annual salaries ranging from $66,000 for social media associates to nearly $200,000 for senior leadership. When you crunch the numbers (something few in the governor’s office do), the cost for staff to promote Shapiro’s public persona more than doubles that of his policy research team.

But this is part and parcel with the overall growth of Shapiro’s team. The Governor’s Office budget has nearly doubled under his leadership. Before Shapiro took office, the office’s budget was about $6.9 million in the 2022–23 fiscal year. Three years later, that budget grew to nearly $12 million—a 74 percent increase.

This taxpayer-funded growth has only enabled Shapiro’s compulsive social media habits. In less than two months, his state-funded social media team churned out more than 120 Instagram videos. He’s just as active on TikTok, posting 365 videos in 2025 alone that, when combined, equal the runtime of a full-length movie.

The subject matter of these videos often veers—or, at times, swerves at full speed—away from substantive issues. Instead, they frequently highlight the governor’s obsessions with Uncrustables, professional sports, and Barbie. (His PR team has even targeted the Commonwealth Foundation with childish insults on X/Twitter to distract from the governor’s impending tax hikes.)

Shapiro’s preoccupation with social media also inspired his “Democracy Summer Camp”—an invite-only summit for dozens of social media influencers and digital content creators. One attendee claimed the event was designed to “promote” the 2024 election and “combat misinformation.” The administration has yet to disclose the costs, presenters, participants, or funding sources for the days-long event.

Sadly, Shapiro’s shameless self-promotion is just the tip of this taxpayer-funded iceberg. Report after report highlights the governor’s unquenchable thirst for luxury hotels, high-end housewares, airfare, and sporting events (including the Super Bowl).

Recent taxpayer-funded upgrades to his personal home have also raised eyebrows. The Pennsylvania Treasury Department has questioned the governor’s $1 million security upgrades to his home in Montgomery County, challenging the use of public funds for a private residence. But this expense follows on the heels of other multimillion-dollar upgrades, including a $14 million fence, $6 million cameras and motion sensors, $8 million in bulletproof windows, and $4 million in fire suppression.

The property upgrades have also landed Shapiro in a not-so-neighborly legal dispute. His neighbors allege that the governor illegally seized about 3,000 square feet of their yard after his attempts to buy the property fell through. The lawsuit details Shapiro’s “outrageous abuse of power,” including Pennsylvania State Police patrolling the property and blocking his neighbors’ access to it.

Shapiro also earned the infamous distinction of being the nation’s highest-paid governor. After a recent cost-of-living adjustment, the governor now receives a base salary of $253,870—51 percent above the national average.

Oddly enough, despite the major public investment, Shapiro’s costly self-promotion hasn’t helped his national ambitions. Recent Quinnipiac polling revealed that more Pennsylvanians said the governor would not be a “good president.”

While Governor Josh Shapiro continues to milk taxpayers to promote his most-cherished cause (i.e., himself), his all-style, no-substance persona has also limited his ability to govern effectively. And considering how little he has accomplished, Shapiro may want to put down his cell phone and focus on public service, bettering the lives of Pennsylvanians rather than burdening them with the cost of his incessant vanity tour.