Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is locked in a budget impasse with the legislature. For five months, the state has been without a budget, and social services–including achools–are suffering. Apparently, he and legislators may reach a deal by Thanksgiving Wolf wants to increase funding for education and to tax the fracking industry; the legislature doesn’t. After four years of Republican Tom Corbett, the legislature thinks it is acceptable to allow schools to go bankrupt (the easier to privatize them) and that the fracking industry must never be taxed to pay for the natural resources it extracts.
The voters don’t agree. A recent poll shows overwhelming support for taxes on gas drillers. 67% agree that the industry should be taxed.
Governor Wolf is a bright light in Pennsylvania, fighting for students and the future. For that matter, he is a bright light in the nation.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hold the line, Tom Wolf. You are on the right side of the issue! The residents of the Commonwealth need to support him and work to vote out the corrupt horde of bandits that are holding Harrisburg hostage.
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I find it criminal not to fund PUBLIC schools. OY! Those corporations who don’t pay their taxes are just crooks who want robots to work for them. Terrible.
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Gov. Wolf’s election last year, after running on a platform of strong support for public education, fair funding, and respect for teachers, is a lesson for the national Democratic party about how to turn out the vote, get people energized, and win with a Progressive message. Sadly, Obama doesn’t get it and, I fear, the seemingly invincible nominee, HIllary, doesn’t get it either. Bernie Sanders gets it. A political revolution which rejects compromise with corporatizers is what will give people a reason to vote. You can talk all you want about making voting easier and rejecting Republican attempts to diminsh the turnout, but Democrats for the most part, Wolf and Sanders are exceptiosn, simply don’t give ordinary citizens any reason to bother going to the polls when the message is more of the same, Republican light.
Wolf is fighting the good fight but is up against it here because of Republican redistricting which means that the rural districts, populated mostly by elk and pheasant, run Harrisburg instead of the majority which live in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Hopefully, the newly elected democrats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will be there for us when the inevitable compromises occur and our collective bargaining and pension rights are attempted to be taken away by the legislature.
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