Received this e-mail today from Keystone Progress regarding Pennsylvania taxpayers and Governor Tom Corbett (R. PA):
Governor Tom Corbett is at it again.
He told us cutting corporate taxes would create jobs. But after he gave corporations hundreds of millions in tax breaks, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate went up.
He promised to clean up Harrisburg and change the way the “politicians” do business, but he and his wife have taken free yacht trips, helicopter rides, tickets to black-tie galas and other goodies from corporate and lobbyist friends.
And he insisted that his backroom deal to outsource the State Lottery to a foreign corporation was legal, until Attorney General Kathleen Kane declared it unconstitutional.
In the most recent polling, 47% of Pennsylvanians disapprove of the job Governor Corbett is doing, because of his out-of-touch actions and attacks on working families.
Now he has a new scheme: to privatize sales of wine and spirits by dismantling a system that generates half-a-billion dollars a year for state taxpayers and turning it over to his corporate friends. Corbett’s scheme will risk the public safety of the citizens of Pennsylvania and hurt our families and communities by allowing an unlimited amount of outlets to sell alcohol.
Tom Corbett has said the reason our unemployment rate is so high is because workers are too. Yet, now he wants to throw another 5,000 Pennsylvanians on the unemployment line and create even more drinking problems by wildly putting alcohol on every corner with his reckless privatization scheme.
Corbett’s liquor privatization plan will:
Cost thousands of jobs. At a time when Pennsylvania is still struggling to fully recover from the Great Recession, the Corbett plan could put as many as 17,000 workers at beer distributors and in the state’s wine and spirit shops system out of their jobs.
Put more pressure on taxpayers by cutting state revenues. The PLCB generates more than $500 million for Pennsylvania each year. Those revenues will be dramatically slashed under Corbett’s plan.
Lead to higher prices and reduced selection. Washington State’s newly privatized system - similar to Corbett’s plan - has raised prices and limited selection so much that consumers are driving across the border to Oregon and Idaho, which have state liquor stores, to purchase their alcohol.
Contact your State Senator and tell her/him to reject Corbett’s latest scheme to help his corporate friends at our expense:
https://secure3.convio.net/...
Tell your Senator to support a common-sense alternative that keeps the profitable system that benefits all taxpayers but improves convenience and gives the wine and spirits shops greater pricing and purchasing flexibility:
https://secure3.convio.net/...
You can sign the petition here:
https://secure3.convio.net/...