Dan Onorato

PITTSBURGH: With continued silence from Tom Corbett a month and a half after Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato first challenged him to a series of debates, the Onorato campaign today issued the fifth debate question:

After opposing a Marcellus shale severance tax that every other major gas-producing state except Pennsylvania already has, and calling for drilling standards that are “voluntary,” how are you going to protect the drinking water that families rely on and preserve Pennsylvania’s environment?

            In a week when one front-page headline declared “Report: Well-drilling violations near 1,500 for Marcellus Shale,” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/3/2010], voters deserve to hear how both candidates would balance economic and public safety interests when it comes to natural gas drilling.

            Onorato has issued a detailed policy paper on the subject, calling for the successful and safe development of Marcellus shale resources in order to create jobs for Pennsylvanians, foster economic development and protect the environment.

Onorato backs a severance tax on Marcellus shale drilling that is competitive with other states, and he would use the proceeds to fund enforcement by the Department of Environmental Protection, to help local communities address the impact of drilling on their roads and other services, and to pay for the renewal of Growing Greener – the state’s major environmental conservation and preservation programs.

            Corbett opposes a severance tax, so that the oil and gas industry can maximize its profits.

            Corbett has also called for “voluntary drilling standards” [Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 6/23/2010] based on “consensus” with the industry [Corbett public statement, 6/23/2010] – which would likely mean environmental regulations are even weaker than they are today.

             And Corbett is against a temporary halt to new drilling leases in State Forests [Associated Press, 5/12/2010].

            “Dan Onorato will ensure that the Marcellus shale leads to new jobs for Pennsylvanians at the same time as we protect our environment, while Tom Corbett sees only one side of the issue: the industry’s side,” said Onorato Communications Director Brian Herman. “That is why Pennsylvanians deserve to hear the candidates debate – and it’s why Tom Corbett is refusing.”

            Corbett has built a reputation for choosing sides against average Pennsylvanians. Pressed this week on his earlier comment that “the jobs are there” but unemployed Pennsylvanians do not want to go back to work, Corbett “brushed aside the issue” and “sidesteps [the] controversial comments.” [Citizens Voice, 8/3/2010]

            And given the opportunity to preserve health care for 46,000 working Pennsylvanians or protect the $5.6 billion bank accounts of four major insurance companies, Corbett chose to protect the insurance industry and oppose a 3-year extension of the adultBasic health insurance program.

            So it makes sense that Corbett is refusing to debate. In fact, Monday marks the first official gubernatorial forum that Corbett is ducking: when the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania meets, its members will hear from the candidates separately because the Corbett campaign refused to share a stage.

“Getting Pennsylvania’s economy back on track will be my top priority as Governor,” Onorato said. “Small businesses are vital to our economic success, and I am the only candidate with the experience and the vision to create the environment for Pennsylvania businesses to thrive.”

Small businesses are responsible for more than half of the nation’s private-sector economic activity and over 60% of new jobs.

“Small firms are the proving ground for innovation and the lifeline of strong communities,” Onorato said. “In Allegheny County, I focused on small businesses because they drive our economy in a big way. As Governor, I’ll bring that same commitment to private-sector job creation to Harrisburg.”

            Under Onorato’s leadership, Allegheny County’s unemployment rate is significantly lower than both the state’s and the nation’s. There are more people working in Allegheny County than in any other county in Pennsylvania, and the region has received accolades for its job growth, quality of life and ability to attract college graduates and families.


            As Allegheny County Executive, Onorato has championed economic development and aligned workforce development programs to meet the needs of businesses. His plan to grow Pennsylvania’s economy, which was released in January, will:

·      Establish a climate where businesses can succeed;
·      Launch a “Grow Your Own” success strategy to help firms start, expand and prosper;
·      Encourage entrepreneurship and innovation;
·      Boost export opportunities for Pennsylvania companies and attract foreign companies to the state; and
·      Ensure that Pennsylvania’s workforce is prepared for and able to access high-skill, well-paying jobs.


          “I have been working with small businesses in Allegheny County to address their needs and the obstacles they face,” Onorato said. “I will do the same as Pennsylvania’s Governor.”

PITTSBURGH: Beginning tomorrow, approximately 3,500 Pennsylvanians with serious pre-existing medical conditions will start signing up for affordable health insurance under a program that Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett has indicated he will end if elected Governor.

             Pennsylvania is receiving $160 million from the federal government as part of the national health insurance reform law to provide healthcare coverage to people with pre-existing conditions who are not able to find insurance on their own.  Participants will be responsible for paying $283.20 per month, plus co-pays.

But in a recent fundraising letter, Corbett wrote: “as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General and soon-to-be Governor, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES will I go along with this unconstitutional, big-government, special-interest takeover of our healthcare.”

            “Does Tom Corbett even realize that the impact of using the Attorney General’s Office for politics and fundraising is that Pennsylvania taxpayers with pre-existing conditions would lose their healthcare?” asked Onorato Communications Director Brian Herman.

            Just last week, Corbett sided with the major insurance companies over Pennsylvania’s working families, opposing a 3-year extension of the adultBasic health care program that would require insurance companies to use a small portion of their $5.6 billion surpluses to prevent 45,000 low-income working adults from losing their healthcare. The extension would only last until the national healthcare reform law takes effect in 2014, though Corbett has sued to block those provisions as well.

            “Tom Corbett has promised not to ‘go along’ with a program that provides affordable health insurance to Pennsylvanians with serious pre-existing conditions – just like he refused to go along with using some of the insurance companies’ $5.6 billion bank accounts to help Pennsylvania families keep their healthcare,” said Herman. “Dan Onorato is the only candidate who understands that skyrocketing health care costs are crippling the middle class and crushing our small businesses.”

             As Attorney General in the 1990’s, Corbett refused to join a multi-state lawsuit against tobacco companies. Corbett’s Republican successor, Attorney General Mike Fisher, later helped reach a 14-state settlement with a tobacco company. The adultBasic program was ultimately launched by Governor Ridge using funding from the Tobacco Settlement Master Agreement.

            More recently, Corbett announced as Attorney General and a gubernatorial candidate earlier this year that he would join a lawsuit to stop the national healthcare reform law. It later emerged that the Attorney General’s Office had discussed its plans with the Republican State Leadership Committee, the national organization dedicated to electing Republicans to statewide row offices and which contributed heavily to Corbett’s 2004 campaign.

            Tom Corbett’s official website says that the Attorney General’s Office “aims to protect the public from unfair health care practices and help shape Pennsylvania’s policies in favor of the consumer.”

Yet it was the state Insurance Department – not Corbett – that launched an investigation earlier this year into whether small businesses were being unfairly charged high insurance premiums.

PITTSBURGH: Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato today joined working families and medical professionals in calling on the state’s large insurance companies to continue to provide affordable health care to over 45,000 working Pennsylvanians for just three more years.

The Community Health Reinvestment agreement, which funds the adultBasic insurance program, is set to expire on December 31, 2010, and leave more than 45,000 Pennsylvanians without healthcare coverage until the federal healthcare reform law fully takes effect in 2014. The program is largely funded from the state’s tax-exempt Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance companies, which together have untapped reserves of $5.6 billion.

            “Skyrocketing health care costs are crippling the middle class and crushing our small businesses,” Onorato told the “Rally for adultBasic” at the Birmingham Free Clinic. “Asking insurance companies to keep over 45,000 of our fellow citizens from losing their health care for just a few more years is both fair and reasonable.”

            The rally was one of five events held across the state calling on the insurance companies to reach an agreement that would extend adultBasic until Pennsylvanians can receive assistance purchasing affordable health insurance in 2014 through the federal healthcare reform law.

           “Working families across Pennsylvania rely on adultBasic for affordable health care so they can receive the medical care they need to keep their jobs,” Onorato said. “During these tough economic times, it is more important than ever that Pennsylvanians do not lose access to health care.”

           The adultBasic health insurance program was launched in 2002 using Pennsylvania’s share of the settlement with tobacco companies. The Blues have been contributing to adultBasic for the last six years.

           As of June 2010, the adultBasic insurance program provided coverage to 45,927 Pennsylvanians, and 397,671 people are on the waiting list. Most adultBasic participants earn between $10,000 and $20,000 per year.

           In 2009, the four Blues insurance providers reported more than $5.6 billion in reserves. During that year, they paid approximately $125 million to help fund adultBasic. Extending adultBasic until 2014 would cost the insurance companies an estimated $200 million per year, which is equal to less than 4% of their reserves.

 
PITTSBURGH: After dodging questions about his repeated remarks that the “jobs are there” but Pennsylvanians would rather “sit there” on unemployment benefits than go back to work, Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett tried this morning to pretend that it never happened at all.


            Appearing on Fox 29’s “Good Day Philadelphia,” Corbett had the following exchange:

Host: “Can you clear this up for me?  Did you say: Hey, listen, I opened the want ads in the papers, and it seems like there’s a lot of jobs to me, I think a lot of people would rather collect unemployment benefits than look for a job.”

Tom Corbett: “No, I didn’t say it that way at all.”

But that is exactly what Tom Corbett has said.

            As the Delaware County Daily Times reported in today’s newspaper:

“When asked about a statement he made earlier this month that ‘the jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there,’ Corbett pointed to the classified section of the Philadelphia Inquirer that promises ‘thousands of jobs here (in print) and online.’

‘So you make the distinction whether there are jobs out there or not,’ he said to an Inquirer reporter. ‘I’m reporting what you report. Your newspaper says there’s thousands of jobs. Do I know that to be true? I don’t. I’ve got to trust your newspaper.’

Corbett would not say if he thinks people are not taking advantage of those jobs, but did say he wanted to focus on the future and job development, not what he had said in the past.

‘Do you have a classified list? Are there jobs on there? … How would you interpret that?’ he said….” [7/28/2010]

Prior to citing newspaper want ads as the source for his knowledge of the economy, Corbett had initially “pointed to one candy company in Camp Hill as an example, saying the owner told him they hired 50 European college students for the summer when the company was unable to fill its full-time positions.” [Capitolwire, 7/9 2010]

            The online news service Capitolwire subsequently reported that the “Candymaker says Corbett misstated their employment issues.” [7/14/2010]

            In fact, there are currently 591,000 Pennsylvanians who are out of work and looking for jobs. As Capitolwire also noted: “The Republican nominee for governor is wrong, according to even the most respected government-shrinking, anti-tax-hike state think tank around, about whether the jobs are there.” [7/10/2010]

And in March, following a visit to a job referral center in Lancaster, Corbett similarly “provocatively suggested that Congress’ decision to extend unemployment benefits might be having the opposite of its intended effect and actually be serving as a disincentive to go back to work. ‘What I see here are people looking for jobs, but that’s only 10 percent [of the unemployed],’ he said. ‘What about the other 80 or 90 percent?’” [Capitol Ideas, 3/18/2010]

            “Tom Corbett is learning the hard way that his words matter, and time and time again they show he is out of touch with Pennsylvania families,” said Onorato Communications Director Brian Herman. “Pennsylvania needs a Governor who understands the problems we are facing and has the solutions to turn the state around, and Tom Corbett clearly does not measure up.”

PITTSBURGH: Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Corbett today insisted for at least the third time in five months that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate – the highest in over 25 years – is actually the fault of out-of-work Pennsylvanians.

            As reported on Philly.com this afternoon:

           “Speaking to reporters after a campaign stop in Delaware County, the Republican nominee for governor noted that newspapers across the state are carrying line after line of help-wanted ads.


           ‘Are there jobs out there?... How would you interpret that?’ he asked.


           Corbett reported seeing one newspaper page that he said promised thousands of jobs listings in print and online.


           ‘You guys asked me if there are jobs out there,’ he said to a pair of reporters. ‘If I am a common citizen, the average citizen, and I look at a newspaper . . . and I see jobs – what’s the answer to that question.’”
 

            There are currently 591,000 Pennsylvanians who are out of work and looking for jobs. As the online news service Capitolwire noted: “The Republican nominee for governor is wrong, according to even the most respected government-shrinking, anti-tax-hike state think tank around, about whether the jobs are there.”

 

            “Tom Corbett still doesn’t get it,” Democratic gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato said. “Pennsylvania needs a Governor who can get our economy back on track, and Tom Corbett’s remarks prove once again that I am the only candidate with the understanding, the experience and the plan to turn this economy around.”

            Corbett’s comments today follow withering criticism for his earlier repeated statements that unemployment benefits encourage out-of-work Pennsylvanians to stay home even though “the jobs are there.”

            In March, following a visit to a job referral center in Lancaster, Corbett “provocatively suggested that Congress’ decision to extend unemployment benefits might be having the opposite of its intended effect and actually be serving as a disincentive to go back to work. ‘What I see here are people looking for jobs, but that’s only 10 percent [of the unemployed],’ he said. ‘What about the other 80 or 90 percent?’” [Capitol Ideas, March 18, 2010]

            And earlier this month, Corbett told WITF public radio that: “People don’t want to come back to work while they still have unemployment…. The jobs are there, but if we keep extending unemployment the people are going to sit there…” [July 9, 2010]