Obama visited Philly the other day campaigning for Tom Wolf for governor. They held the rally in half of a basketball court, and only managed to fill half of that space, in Philadelphia, where Wolf has the most support of anywhere in the state.
But Wolf is ahead by 10 points. He campaigned and appealed to the few liberal bastions in the state, and is banking on everybody else staying home. They will, and he'll win, marking the first time an incumbent governor has not been reelected in PA, ever.
Corbett cut education funding instead of increasing borrowing or raising taxes. That didn't sit well with the teachers unions. He also lifted a cap on the gasoline tax to fund much-needed transportation infrastructure projects. That didn't sit well with a lot of people. A classic case of people wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I'm not a big fan of Corbett, but more because of the things he hasn't done, not because of the things he has done. Corbett's "mistake" is actually funding things instead of just racking up debt to future generations, and funding things in manners like letting vehicle registrations and gasoline taxes build the roads so that the people who actually use them pay for them, rather than just squeezing "the 1%" for more revenue as is socially acceptable.
Wolf has pledged to undo all of Corbett's spending cuts and increase spending more on education, increase the state income tax for the "wealthy," and create a new extraction tax for natural gas drillers. He has been endorsed by Michael Bloomberg for his support of gun control laws and created an empty "sportsmen for Wolf" campaign group to try to garner support from the state's many hunters (it didn't work very well). When he held a state treasury position a decade ago he supported expanding and increasing the state sales tax to raise more revenue. He has campaigned on being a successful small business owner in PA and insisting that he knows how to promote business growth, but he sold the company in 2006, its incorporation was moved to Delaware for tax purposes, Wolf bought it back a few years later, and left it that way.
The positions he openly campaigns on are bad enough, I can't imagine what surprises he'll bring to the table.
Wolf also received a $50,000 donation from a 6-year county commissioner who has done nothing but trash county offices, funnel taxpayer money to his pet projects, and run libel campaigns to ruin the reputation of anybody who opposes his proposals. This commissioner thinks he's part of the mafia (maybe he is, he owns an Italian restaurant, a construction company, and a real estate company). A $50k donation from him is a huge red flag to me.
But I digress. My prediction for the state election is that less than 50% of registered voters make it to the polls, Philadelphia elects Wolf, and I will have to pay more for natural gas, higher state income taxes, face magazine capacity restrictions, teachers will get raises, transportation infrastructure projects will be put on ice, more farms will go under, and Wolf's business will stay in Delaware.
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