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MAY 15, 2012

Broken Bottle Booze Bonanza Baffles Bourbon Barons

Another day, another alliteration, another wasteful Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board practice uncovered by the media. This time, a hat tip to Ben Simmoneau of CBS 3 Philadelphia for his report uncorking a putrid potables policy whereby consumers can simply pour out contents, break a bottle, return it to the PLCB and they will replace it, no questions asked! You can't make this stuff up.

The bottom line for the Viceroys of Vine: They lost $2.5 million worth of wine and liquor: bottles broken, stolen or just plain missing. The year before, it was $3 million. And that was a year the whole system only made $52 million, according to the report.

 

But no worries, drinks are always on the house. And by house, I mean taxpayers, who will continue to bear the burden of government-sold booze until privatization finds its way. Until then, stay thirsty comrades.

www.FreeMyDrink.com

posted by JAY OSTRICH |  04:00 PM |  0 comment
Related : Liquor Store Privatization

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MAY 15, 2012

New Healthcare Regs Would Cost PA Taxpayers $50 Million

A bill on the floor of the state House would circumvent consumer freedom when it comes to prescription drugs. Many employers, including the state, encourage employees to buy less costly prescription drugs through mail order pharmacies.

HB 511 would prohibit companies from offering incentives to employees to utilize mail order pharmacies.

Prohibiting incentives to use mail order drugs would cost state taxpayers nearly $50 million in the first year, according to a Pennsylvania Office of the Budget analysis. HB 511's fiscal note states:

As a cost-savings measure, OA [Office of Administration] and PEBTF [Pennsylvania Employee Benefit Trust Fund] have encouraged the use of a mail order pharmacy. HB 511 would eliminate these savings, increasing overall costs by decreasing the effective discount rate and guaranteed minimum formulary rebate and increasing the dispensing fee. . . Although HB 511 allows for the possibility of an exemption for PEBTF, the process for evaluating and determining such an exemption is unclear. Assuming that the PEBTF is not exempt from the requirements of HB 511, we anticipate an increase of more than $47.5 million in the first year alone.

Even with an exemption for state employees, is it fair to enact one set of rules for government and another for private business? HB 511 is an anti-competitive bill that takes away choices from consumers in order to enact a one-size-fits-all system that will increase health insurance costs.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE |  02:40 PM |  2 comments
Related : Regulation, Health Care

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MAY 14, 2012

State Budget vs Spending Limits

Last week, the Pennsylvania State Senate passed a budget representing $27.66 in General Fund spending. How does that stack up against inflation and population growth?

If state spending limits like the Taxpayer Protection Act had been in place since 2002, allowing spending to increase with inflation and population growth, General Fund fund spending would be $26.8 billion next year.

The Senate budget represents $800 million more than that (Gov. Corbett's proposal about $300 million above that threshold). When including the sales tax for the Public Transportation Fund—spending that was part of the General Fund in 2002, but was move to a new fund in 2007, and would be covered under all versions of TPA—the Senate budget proposal would exceed the limit by $1.2 billion.

More importantly, had the TPA been around over that decade, spending would have increased at a steady pace. Taxpayers would have kept billions of their own dollars—almost $8,000 per family of four, just by limiting General Fund growth. And the spending cuts of the past few years—even the federal stimulus subsidies that were used to balance the budget—would have been unnecessary.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD |  04:40 PM |  0 comment
Related : Pennsylvania State Budget, Spending Limits

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MAY 11, 2012

UnAPPetizing Waste Poured by PLCB...Again

 

Have you heard of the millionaire iPhone app?  It's called VIP Black and for $1,000 at the iTunes store you get a "premium lifestyle application" that guarantees "heightened experiences across the range of luxury partners." 

Good for those who can afford and benefit from this app (perhaps those who have luxury tasting rooms on other people's dime), but I'm guessing most of us - let's call us the Angry Birds crowd - could never imagine dropping that kind of coin on an app.  But we already have.  In fact, taxpayers had to foot the bill for an app that costs 100 times the millionaire app. 

The PLCB launched the Fine Wine & Good Sprits app back in January.  This free download lets users scan the bar codes on wine and spirits and find out if PA's Bordeaux Barons have granted Pennsylvanians the privilege of purchasing it and, if so, where they can find it and for how much.  Unfortunately the app does not, as one message board comment lamented, offer the quickest directions to New Jersey or Delaware.  The cost to taxpayers? $100,000.  And this is just the latest example of PA's monopoly of mediocrity burning through tax dollars in the name of "modernization;" let's not forget the wine kiosk catastrophe and the $66 million failed inventory system.

It's time for Pennsylvania to truly modernize and join the 48 other states that have moved beyond total state control over wine and liquor sales.  Pennsylvanians want freedom, and we don't need an app for that.

www.freemydrink.com

posted by DAWN MELING |  00:08 PM |  2 comments
Related : Privatization, Liquor Store Privatization

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MAY 9, 2012

Chart of the Day: General Fund Spending and Revenue

Yesterday, the Pa. Senate Appropriations Committee advanced a budget (the full Senate is expected to vote on it today) that includes $27.65 billion in General Fund spending.

Unfortunately, this budget spends about $300 million more than what the projected net revenues will be for next year.

The budget is "balanced" by using the remaining monies left in the account following last year. With federal stimulus funds, and the transfer of the "Rainy Day Fund" and other one-time revenues, the state ended Fiscal Year 2010-11 with more than $1 billion in the General Fund.

Both the current 2011-12 budget and the proposed 2012-13 budget would spend more than revenue, dropping that fund balance to slightly more than $100 million, based on the latest revenue forecast of the Independent Fiscal Office.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD |  11:40 AM |  0 comment
Related : Budget & Spending, Pennsylvania State Budget

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MAY 9, 2012

EXPOSED: PLCB Wine Shrine Uncovered

Nothing to see here, folks, move along and remain quiet, we are busy protecting your palettes.

That's the dismissive reaction to taxpayers from Pennsylvania Liquor Control boss Joe Conti whose defense of the indefensible "Wine Shrine," was exposed on ABC-27 and NBC-8 Harrisburg last night.  Built with 35,000 tax dollars plus labor from taxpayer-paid in-house staff carpenters, a cadre of cabernet clinicians called the "Luxury Team" use this room to properly "educate your palates."  

But, hey, they don't swallow, so it's all good in the liquor hood, says Conti.  Moreover, it's what the private sector does in other state, he says.  Ummm, Mr. Conti, that's the point.

And of the leather-lined room where they selflessly sip samples of syrah?  Well, that's a "bargain" and just "best practices" for government-paid employees who also jetset around the globe on your tax dollars picking wine winners and liquor losers. 

Conti complains this issue has nothing to do with privatization and those who are critical just have uninformed opinions. See for yourself and you decide if this is a good use of your tax dollars...

 

Until the Palate Bureau is replaced with freedom, stay thirsty my comrades.

www.letfreedomdrink.com

 

posted by JAY OSTRICH |  10:12 AM |  2 comments
Related : Liquor Store Privatization

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MAY 8, 2012

Why Pennsylvania Needs Spending Limits

In a Capitolwire story (subscription), Senate Appropriations Chair Jake Corman notes that the proposed version of the state budget the Senate will take up this week increases spending by less than the rate of inflation and population growth.  He also suggests that is the standard for all future budgets.

"We believe the budget should never increase higher than TABOR would allow, so we can be sure we have sustainable growth in the budget" Corman said.

However, to realistically control state spending growth, lawmakers need to enact a spending limit like the Taxpayer Protection Act, especially a constitutional amendment version to prevent future tampering.  Matt Mitchell explains why fiscal guardrails like the TPA are needed to constrain overspending in Heritage Insider Magazine:

Spending growth threatens to push both federal and state debt-to-gross domestic product ratios past 90 percent in a matter of years. That is the level at which the largest and most comprehensive studies suggest debt begins to dramatically reduce economic growth.

It might seem that the natural solution is to elect politicians committed to reining in spending, especially on the entitlement programs and pensions at the heart of state and federal overspending. The problem, however, is that even fiscally conservative politicians face significant perverse incentives to spend beyond their constituents' means. And even if they do manage to trim the budget, today's cuts can be reversed by tomorrow's leaders.

Luckily, there is hope. Political incentives are shaped, in part, by institutions, i.e., the rules that govern budgeting, electioneering, and legislating. These rules influence the decisions of legislators, governors, presidents, bureaucrats, voters, and even lobbyists. So if we can improve the institutions, we can enduringly diminish the incentive to overspend.

Indeed, due to decades of overspending, even modest growth in this year's budget isn't enough to protect Pennsylvania's fiscal house.  The proposed Senate budget would spend about $300 million more than net revenue collections next year (based on Independent Fiscal Office projections), and doesn't begin to address cost drivers in corrections, welfare, and government workers' pensions. 

When the economy rebounds, and tax revenues start increasing, future lawmakers will be tempted to repeat the same mistakes and overspend taxpayers' money.  Passing the Taxpayer Protection Act now would limit the growth in government spending, prevent future fiscal disasters, and provide tax relief to families.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD |  00:10 PM |  1 comment
Related : Budget & Spending, Pennsylvania State Budget, Spending Limits

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MAY 8, 2012

Correcting Corrections Correctly

A look at Senate Bill 100

Over the last 30 years, Pennsylvania's incarceration rate has increased by 500 percent and corrections spending has skyrocketed 1,700 percent. The unprecedented prison population growth at unsustainable costs was caused by a breakdown in our criminal justice system, not an increase in crime or statewide population growth. 

Evidence-based policy reforms should embrace the following three principles:

1. Keep Low-Risk Cases Out of Prisons. Research indicates that while imprisonment keeps offenders from committing crimes while in prison, it does not deter crimes after release, and may even make low-risk offenders more likely to commit future crimes.
2. Reduce Recidivism. Inmates must be rehabilitated by addressing behavioral and substance abuse issues. Nearly 45 percent of Pennsylvania offenders return to prison after three years. A significant factor is technical parole or probation violations such as breaking curfew, not new crimes.
3. Fund Results, Not Just Punishments. Criminal justice reforms should protect citizens, lower crime rates, and control spending.

Senate Bill 100

This legislation primarily addresses how the state correctional system handles nonviolent offenders with drug and alcohol addictions. 

• Risk Assessments Guidelines. An up-front risk assessments tool is added into the state's sentencing guidelines.
  • This will sort out high risk cases that should be in state prison from lower risk cases that may be better managed in less expensive alternative programs.
• Alternative Program Eligibility. As an alternative to traditional prison, offenders may be sentenced to one of the state's alternative sentencing programs, designed for nonviolent criminals, often dealing with substance abuse. SB 100 makes the following changes:
  • Allows eligible offender to be sentenced to a state-level alternative program even if a mandatory minimum sentence applies. Currently, minimum sentences disqualify many otherwise eligible offenders.
  • The age criteria for an inmate to be sentenced to Quehanna Motivational Boot Camp increased from age 35 to 40. Modeled after military boot camp, it delivers a rigorous, regimented schedule. Successful program completion earns inmates a reduced sentence.
  • Offenders with low-quantity drug trafficking offenses may be sentenced to County Intermediate Punishment. Offenders serve their sentence and receive appropriate treatment at the county level instead of state prison.
• County "HOPE" Courts. Counties can establish an innovative probation program that provides swift, predictable sanctions on probation violators. Modeled after Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) program to incentivize probationers to stay drug and alcohol free.
  • In a HOPE program, drug offenders must call every morning to see if they must report to court for a drug test. Failure can result in immediate jail time. As a result, positive drug tests have dropped more than 70 percent and new arrests cut in half, saving an estimated $4,000 to $8,000 per offender.
• Counts Jail Time towards Prerelease Center Eligibility. One of the time-eligibility requirements an inmate must satisfy before entering a prerelease center is serving at least nine months of their sentence in prison. Under this law, time served in county jails and would count towards this minimum. Violent and sex offenders are ineligible.
  • Prerelease programs provide low-risk offenders opportunities for reintegration into communities through work, education and vocational training release as well as community centers for specialized additional treatment and guidance and counseling.
  • State corrections facilities receive a significant number of offenders with short sentences that would be better served in community centers than state prisons.

Recommendation for Improvement

• SB 100 makes small expansions in eligibility criteria for the state's successful alternative sentencing programs. This should be extensively expanded, particularly allowing more inmates convicted of substance abuse.
  • At a minimum, the list of offenses ineligible for alternative sentencing should not be expanded.
• A sentencing judge should be able to order an offender to participate in an alternative sentencing program without approval by the prosecutor.
• There should be incentives for counties to establish a "HOPE" court style program or require counties to participate.

posted by KATRINA CURRIE |  09:50 AM |  0 comment
Related : Budget & Spending, Criminal Justice

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MAY 7, 2012

This is the Change You've Been Looking For

I had the opportunity to hear Scott Rasmussen speak last week. The theme of his speech was "change"—as in how policy change happens. The lesson he gave was that policy change takes a long time to happen, and that it is driven not by political leaders in Washington, but that it follows from public opinion.

His example was women's suffrage. Suffrage didn't begin with the 19th Amendment, but rather Congress acted after numerous states had already given women the right to vote, and voters' opinion (given many women were voting already) had clearly shifted.

Rasmussen argued that, though many now will mock "change" as a campaign slogan, Americans do in fact want policy change. Specifically, Rasmussen argues that voters want to see government cut its spending, and he backs this up with polling data.

The problem, he notes, is that total government spending in the United States—federal, state and local— has increased every year since 1955. For historical perspective, the hit TV show of the day was Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier.

What interested me is how the national perspective so closely parallels what is happening in Pennsylvania. Last year's total state operating budget cut spending for the first time in more than 40 years. As a result, Pennsylvania's economy has started to rebound. And while special interests continue to protest for higher spending, voters want to see this type of change, not more of the same overspending of their tax dollars.

posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD |  10:13 AM |  0 comment
Related : Budget & Spending, Pennsylvania State Budget