Session Wrap Up
July 20, 2011

Hi, I’m Gene Barr, vice president of the Pennsylvania Chamber. Welcome to this month’s Pennsylvania Chamber Minute.

I’m pleased to report that the culmination of the first six months of this legislative session resulted in a number of your top legislative priorities being signed into law, starting with the long-awaited re-enactment of the Fair Share Act.

This historic legal reform was marked by Governor Corbett saying that Pennsylvania is open for business.

Thi is a refreshing change after eight years spent dealing with an administration’s philosophies that were, more often than not, counter to what the private-sector needs to foster business growth and job creation – philosophies that never enabled Pennsylvania to gain competitive ground against other states.

In addition to the repeal of joint and several liability, other progress includes the adoption of a budget that begins to take the difficult but necessary steps to restore fiscal discipline to state government. To that end, the PA Chamber urged lawmakers to support language now in the Fiscal Code that forces school boards to require voter approval of most property tax increases above the inflation rate.

A new unemployment compensation law that extends federally paid benefits, at the same time begins to bring cost savings to the financially troubled system; requires recipients to look for work; and includes an offset for severance pay.

Finally, a Chamber-drafted repeal of a law that required semi-monthly remittance of state sales tax was also included in the Fiscal Code. This change reduces the reporting burden on businesses, particularly those with operations in multiple states. However, it still provides accelerated revenue to the Commonwealth, which was the intent of the twice-monthly remittance.

While these are important legislative accomplishments, much more needs to be done to improve the Commonwealth’s economic outlook. This includes working with organizations at the national level to stop some decidedly anti-business Obama administration policies emerging from the EPA and NLRB that threaten the vital role the private sector must play in economic recovery.

With your continued support and that of pro-business lawmakers in the state Capitol, we can continue the momentum of the last six months and put the Commonwealth securely on the path to prosperity.

Thank you for joining us on this journey. And thank you for spending a minute of your time with the Pennsylvania Chamber, the statewide voice of business.