Are You Angry Yet?

A few weeks ago, I decided to write about the "workforce plan" at my alma mater, Clarion University. Towards the end, I noted that the root of the problem came from the anti-education administration of Pennsylvania's current governor, Tom Corbett, who was happy to keep funding the state's jails but didn't feel nearly as kindly towards education in the state. This is but one facet of an administration that has an absolutely shameful record on many points. If the actions of this man and his administration haven't made you angry yet, you aren't paying attention.

While Corbett continues to blame the President for the cuts to Pennsylvania education, he himself must bear the responsibility for $1 billion in cuts to K-12 education. I've seen widely varying figures as to just how many educators lost their jobs as a result, with numbers as high as 20,000 (though I suspect that those numbers include not just teachers, but also the numerous support staff who lost their jobs in the process), but teachers in every district were cut as an inevitable result of the funding decrease. This coming at the same time that Corbett found money for his pet project of "cyber charter schools," often a convenient way to drain funds further from public education to corporations with little interest in providing an actual education, but plenty of interest in making lots of money (see this article, where it is noted that education costs for cyber schools may be up to six times that of public schools, while none of them are currently meeting the No Child Left Behind standards). Are you angry yet?

The State System of Higher Education saw funding cuts of about 20% in 2011, but this "compromise" was only after the Administration first proposed a 50% cut in state funding for higher education. The following year, the Administration proposed another 25% cut for higher education. These cuts have weakened education at every level in this state, resulting in a lower-quality education as teachers and programs are cut while increasing the price. The cuts also came at a time when Corbett still found more money for jails, part of that money cut from education. Are you angry yet?

Conservatives often pride themselves on being the party of limited government. Yet at the same time, they appear heavily invested in dictating the choices that women will make. Pennsylvania found itself momentarily in the spotlight during a wave of anti-choice legislation sweeping Republican-led states with its own version of a "mandatory ultrasound" bill. The bill, opposed by the Pennsylvania Medical Society, would have forced women to undergo a mandatory ultrasound 24 hours before a scheduled abortion. In many cases, the early stage of the pregnancy would have forced an invasive, trans-vaginal ultrasound. As a comedian at the time quipped, nothing says limited government quite like a forced medical procedure. In a shining moment, Tom Corbett won himself more infamy by dismissing objections to the bill. Women can just "close their eyes," he said. Obviously indifferent to the notion that women have the right to control their own reproduction, Corbett's role in the backlash against women's rights was brief; the bill was ultimately shelved. Given a second term, I suspect he and the legislators might be tempted to try again. Are you angry yet?

When it comes to other rights, Corbett is similarly disdainful. Currently he is defending the discriminatory and unconstitutional Pennsylvania law that defines marriage between a man and a woman. Given the decisions of the Supreme Court over the summer, along with the actions of several state and county officials here in the state, the question is not whether the bill will fall but when. Already, State Attorney General Kathleen Kane has declined to defend the law in court against a lawsuit filed by several organizations, including the ACLU, stating that the law is unconstitutional. Just last week, lawyers for Corbett stirred up justified outrage when they made the analogy that gays are like children in that they cannot be married. After the outrage, they quickly backtracked, but the contempt that Corbett's Administration holds for gay rights is quite clear. As governor, Corbett was elected to represent the entire state of Pennsylvania, not just it's heterosexual majority, something which he has failed to do. Are you mad now?

The most egregious wrong of the Corbett Administration has been their support of a politically-motivated Voter ID law in Pennsylvania. While certainly not as bad as other states' proposed or enacted ID laws (North Carolina perhaps being the worst), Voter ID laws are aimed not at stopping in-person voter fraud, which is nearly non-existent, but are aimed instead at suppressing legitimate Democratic voters. A member of the Pennsylvania legislature admitted as much when he was caught on camera stating that Voter ID would win the state of Pennsylvania for Mitt Romney:

Mike Turzai admits what we already knew

Corbett did not create this legislation, but there is no doubt that he supports it. He did sign it, after all, and it was only halted due to the fact that it is currently being challenged in court. The governor, like the legislators who crafted the bill, cares more about partisan victory than their obligation to the democratic process. Are you angry yet?

If cutting education to the bone, trying to keep people from exercising their democratic right to the ballot box, and hostility to the rights of gays and of women isn't enough to make you mad, then I'm not exactly sure what it would take. Attacks like these should be a matter of concern no matter what party one subscribes to. Educating citizens is what helps to make a republic like ours work. Equal rights for all is an idea essential to the founding of our country. The actions of the Corbett Administration show a clear contempt for these ideas, and more, and we'll be a long time in repairing the damage this man has done to our state in just one term. We need to act to make sure that it doesn't become two. So I ask again, are you angry yet? If you aren't, why not? If you are, then what are you going to do about it?