Today marks 100 days of budget gridlock in Pennsylvania and 78 days since Katie McGinty abandoned her responsibility to the taxpayers, who were paying her nearly $170,000 salary as Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff, to run for senate.
The consequences of Democrats’ obstructionism are reverberating across the state, hurting schools, childcare, and non-profits. The Wall Street Journal reports:
In Pennsylvania, some school districts are borrowing money to stay open while others warn they soon won’t be able to make payroll. Social-service providers are trimming staff.
Nonprofits providing services to the state’s most vulnerable citizens are nearing “crisis” mode, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report:
According to a survey released Monday by the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership and the Forbes Funds, nearly 60 percent of human service and community development agencies said they were experiencing cash flow issues already and another 26 percent expect they will by November.
All because Wolf is determined to raise income taxes on working Pennsylvania families. Wolf’s tax hikes failed again in a vote on Wednesday as a new Quinnipiac poll has his job approval rating underwater.
While much of the blame can be laid at Wolf’s feet, it certainly didn’t help matters that McGinty resigned after less than six months on the job. As the governor’s top aide, a chief of staff typically facilitates communication and negotiations between the governor and legislators, in many cases representing the governor in high-level meetings. But McGinty barely got her feet wet in this important role before ditching it to climb the political ladder.
On that note, former Gov. Ed Rendell – now McGinty’s campaign chairman – had this to say about her quitting her job to run for senate in an early July interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer:
“I don’t think she’ll do it,” Rendell said. “She’d have to start right now, and I don’t think she’d feel good leaving in the middle” of the contentious state budget negotiations.
So far, McGinty doesn’t have much to show for it; the same Quinnipiac poll shows her losing to Sen. Pat Toomey by 20 points, performing worse than her primary opponent, perennial gaffe machine Joe Sestak. Ditching your state in a time of crisis typically doesn’t poll well.