Government Accountability

Shrink or Grow the Size of Legislature

• Nathan Benefield
• October 8, 2009

NCSL’s blog, The Thicket, has a post up about debating reducing or growing the size of the legislature. Pennsylvania serves on the shrinking size, as that is an oft-cited…

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Regulation

Smoking Ban Puts Damper on PA Taverns

• September 15, 2009

A recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette highlights the burden the statewide smoking ban has on Pennsylvania bars and taverns. According to the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, there were…

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Education

No Correlation Between PA School District Spending and Performance

• Nathan Benefield
• September 3, 2009

Tracie Mauriello of the Post-Gazette raises a source of dispute, via Twitter, on education spending vs. performance: pgPoliTweets: Rendell: Ed achievement is correlated to ed spending.

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Health Care

Post-Gazette Combats Health Care “Lies” With Actual Lies

• Nathan Benefield
• August 21, 2009

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Sally Kalson has a ridiculous piece on health care reform (HT PA Watercooler), in which she admittedly fabricates a number of proposals she “imagines” Republicans would…

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State Budget

Post-Gazette’s Nonsense on Pennsylvania Budget

• Nathan Benefield
• July 28, 2009

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial board cribs Gov. Rendell’s talking points on the state budget, and pastes it into an editorial.  They state that lawmakers should not “balance…

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Who is Blogging on CF

• Nathan Benefield
• July 15, 2009

Here are some recent blogs linking to, quoting, or citing the Commonwealth Foundation in the past week: PA WaterCooler links to our post on the Auditor General’s solutions to…

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State Budget

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Against Tax Hikes

• July 1, 2009

The Commonwealth Foundation today launched a new effort to collect names of Pennsylvania lawmakers who agree with President Obama when he said “In an economy like this, the…

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Taxes & Economy

Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to Reapply to Toll I-80

• Nathan Benefield
• May 27, 2009

Tom Barnes in the Post-Gazette has a story on how some Pennsylvania lawmakers, who hail from nowhere near the I-80 corridor, want the Turnpike Commission to reapply to toll…

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State Budget

Budget Hearings a Taxpayer-Funded Sham?

• Nathan Benefield
• May 21, 2009

The Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee is holding hearings on the vesion of the state budget passed by the Senate (see here for more on that) today and tomorrow. Yet…

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