Governor candidates visit
BUTLER TWP — With high unemployment and low job creation in the state, Katie McGinty said there is one man who should be unemployed.
“It is (Gov.) Tom Corbett,” McGinty said.
McGinty of Chester County, the former state Department of Environmental Protection secretary, was one of two Democratic candidates for governor who spoke Saturday at an event sponsored by the Butler County Democratic Committee at American Legion Post 778 in Lyndora.
She said she will fight for good wages and pensions. She said it is a myth that higher wages will force companies to fire people. She said consumers are 70 percent of the economic engine, so if consumers do not have money, the engine will sputter.
McGinty said Corbett went into office with a $1.4 billion surplus, not a deficit. She also said there was bipartisan support for an extraction tax for Marcellus Shale natural gas, which Corbett did not support.
She also said Corbett slashed education spending and increased spending on prisons, which McGinty said was wrong.
“They (students) are our future. That's where we invest,” McGinty told more than 90 people.
Another candidate, former state auditor general Jack Wagner of Allegheny County, said state government is headed in the wrong direction.
As examples, he cited Corbett's attempt to privatize the state lottery, which Wagner said would move the profits away from the state, and Corbett's attempt to privatize state liquor stores, which Wagner said would cause the state to lose $500 million per year.
“How are we going to replace that revenue if it is privatized?” Wagner said.
He said that Corbett “turned his back” on education, and Wagner also said there should be a natural gas extraction tax, which would fund environmental protection programs and training programs so state residents can work in that industry.
Wagner said that Pennsylvania is a moderate political state and that he is a moderate candidate. By contrast, he said the Republican Party is under the influence of the Tea Party, which he considers to be extreme.
“We have to bring this back in the hands of the people,” Wagner said.
McGinty and Wagner are two of seven Democratic candidates running in the May 20 primary. Corbett, who was elected in 2010, will face challenger Bob Guzzardi, a Montgomery County businessman, in the Republican primary.State Treasurer Rob McCord of Montgomery County is another Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Graham Mulqueen, a field organizer for McCord, spoke on his behalf Saturday.He said McCord would propose a $10.70 per hour minimum wage, and would fight for labor organization and collective bargaining. He also said education is important to McCord.“He sees public education as a moral imperative for the people of Pennsylvania,” Mulqueen said.The other Democratic candidates for governor who did not attend or have anyone speak for them included U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, representing the 13th District in Philadelphia; businessman Tom Wolf; John Hanger, another former state environmental protection secretary; and Lebanon County Commissioner Jo Ellen Litz.
