Joseph Corrigan started working on election campaigns when he was 13 and has yet to stop 12 years later. He has worked primarily in Montgomery County but also in Delaware County and was a manager for the race for the state legislature.

After his last election, he decided he, “wanted to keep going on the campaign trial and to break into Philadelphia.”

A friend helped him get in contact with Cindy Bass, a candidate for City Council in the 8th District. Now Corrigan is the deputy campaign manager for Bass.

Corrigan said, “I was looking for another campaign and it [Cindy] just happened.” When asked about working with Bass, he said, “Cindy is an easy sell; she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she’s young.”

His main responsibilities are managing fundraising and the press, along with “making sure that Cindy is happy and working for the day.”

Corrigan works in the office, located at 5539 Germantown Ave., for about 12 hours every day. He said, “you kind of forget the outside world” because of the amount of work required for the campaign.

Corrigan has one other full-time staff member working on the campaign, along with one part-time member and two full-time volunteers. He said there are 30 to 50 community members who also come daily to volunteer at the office and for neighborhood walks.

For more information on the campaign, go to www.cindybass.com.

By Rebecca Arden and Matthew Beck

The manager of the campaign, Laura Frank, sits at her desk in the office and discusses the campaign goals for the next couple of weeks.

One of the biggest obstacles for Frank  will be attracting young voters to this year’s May 17 primary election. Through social networking tactics used in the Obama campaign in 2008, the Tyner campaign will try to make the obstacle easier to overcome.

“The turnout for the Obama election was huge and then went down in 2010,” Frank explained, “We are using a lot of social networks and we are really trying to rely on Facebook and Twitter.”

Historically, citizens of Philadelphia fail to vote in large numbers during City Council elections but Frank thinks that will change through hard work and dedication.

The campaign office, located in Germantown, filled with employees and volunteers helping Tyner with her campaign.

“It is a City Council campaign and people don’t tend to come out,” Fran said, “We are trying to stress how this decision matters in the fact that the incumbent is stepping down and that it is a wide open field this year.”

For more information on the Verna Tyner campaign visit www.tynerforcouncil.com

With the final version of President Obama’s 2011 budget still pending, leaders in the Philadelphia community met yesterday to discuss the local implications of proposed budget cuts to housing and homelessness programs.

Located at 1515 Fairmount Ave., the forum was a collaboration of The People’s Emergency Center, the Philadelphia Office of Supportive Housing and Project H.O.M.E. It included a presentation from Douglas Rice, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, on the current economic challenges facing housing and low-income programs.

“[In the 2011 budget] we are seeing some of the biggest threats to housing and homelessness programs since 1995, 1996,” Rice said.

The House proposal for 2011 will cut HUD funding by $5.4 billion or 12 percent below the 2010 level. Public Housing will lose $1.6 billion in funding. And Community Development Block Grants, funds allocated for anything ranging from homelessness programs to sewage systems, will suffer a 66 percent loss in funding.

“Block grants have a big strength and a big weakness. The big strength is they’re flexible. That’s why communities love them. Communities get the money from the federal government and they sit down and decide how they want to spend it,” Rice said. “But the reporting related to the block grant spending does not translate into outcomes or any kind of coherent narrative that can be easily conveyed to members of congress to explain to them why that spending was so useful.”

Douglas Rice, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, gets ready for his presentation.

Rice went on to explain that these drastic budget cuts will not only effect the 2011 budget but future budgets as well. He attributed the major cuts to pressure from Republicans and moderate Democrats that want to focus on lowering the deficit. Ironically, one of the largest factors projected to contribute to the deficit is the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts that President Obama renewed for another two years back in December. The other factor is the growing cost of health care and the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Despite popular belief, Rice argued that Social Security will play a fairly insignificant role in driving the deficit compared to the cost of health care. The House proposal focuses its cutbacks on non-security discretionary programs–which Rice said only take up 15 percent of the budget while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid take up 41 percent.

“So what is to be done? This is a big question,” Rice said. “It is extremely important to explain to members of Congress what [housing and homelessness programs] really do, why they’re critical on the ground, who they effect in your communities [and] what the effect is–really demonstrate the value. It’s going to be an all out war in Congress, over the coming years, between programs. And it’s going to be incumbent on the stakeholders in every program to demonstrate the critical value that’s provided in every dollar of federal expenditures.”

Graph shows deficit spending could be cut nearly in half without the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

Though Rice presented forum attendees with the bleak reality of the situation, Elizabeth Hersh, executive director of The Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, encouraged the leaders at the forum with a story of Governor Corbett being swayed by public outcry.

“I really believe that if we walk out of this room immobilized and overwhelmed and feeling like there’s nothing that we can do, this situation will continue to be the reality,” Hersh said. “And so I feel like part of my job is to help us, as leaders in the community and advocates, come out feeling some sense of hope and power that we can alter the course of what’s going on–that we already have and that we can.”

Elizabeth Hersh chats with a fellow housing advocate.

The people in the audience, though primarily employed in the housing field, seemed to walk away with a fairly positive attitude about the information Rice and Hersh shared.

“I got the real picture of what the budget consists of and the deficits that effect the programs that I’m a part of and that will effect my clients,” said Eudora Burton, a housing specialist at the National Nursing Centers Consortium dealing in the housing issues of single first time mothers. “Also, I really understood how important it is that when we’re writing for funding or assistance for providing services to our clients that we need to really come up with good outcomes–share the need and the direct effect the budget cuts will have.”

Trish Downey, the manager of external communications for PEC, said, “What I really got out of this conference was that people do move. People can change their minds. And there’s a lot of people that seem like they’re going one way or the other but they’re really on the fence. And that’s what we need to work on and target when it comes to advocacy approaches.”

The forum concluded with a discussion on access to permanent housing for homeless people in Philadelphia.

With the 2011 Philadelphia City Council primary on May 17, the Next Great City coalition gathered at-large City Council candidates and the public for the launch of the Next Great City 2, a new agenda aimed at City Council candidates.

The Next Great City coalition is comprised of over 100 civic groups, labor unions, businesses, social service groups and nonprofits to advocate policies that will enhance the environment and strengthen neighborhoods.

The coalition has come up with five cost-effective policy recommendations to improve and develop Philadelphia neighborhoods.

At-large City Council candidates and other attendees gathered at the Academy of Natural Sciences on Thursday to listen to each of the five speakers who highlighted one of the five different policy recommendations. Seven members of the City Council hold at-large positions.

Bryan Collins, the Philadelphia Outreach coordinator for PennFuture and the coordinator of the Next Great City project said, “The coalition polled city residents and voters in fall 2010 to identify five priority recommendations for City Council action that Philadelphians would support to help Philadelphia become the next great city.”

The survey revealed that 78 percent of Philadelphians are more likely to vote for a city candidate who prioritizes improving the city’s water, air, land, and physical infrastructure.

Speaker Liz Robinson stressed the importance of disclosing energy costs to property buyers.

The survey was conducted by Terry Madonna of Terry Madonna Opinion Research. The research also showed that over 80 percent of Philadelphians favored an increase in funding to make streets safer, a reduction in waste and increase recycling, a reduction in energy use, an improvement in the availability of fresh foods and an increase public funding to improve air quality.

Collins noted that the city has made considerable progress in the past four years with Mayor Michael Nutter. However, Collins said he believes the city still needs a lot of work to do.

“We need a good leadership to make the Next Great City’s goals a reality,” said Collins.

Collins read over the statistics of the poll results. The survey showed that one in four Philadelphians had an abandoned property in the neighborhood and one in five Philadelphians avoided a bike trip because it was believed there was no safe route.

Speakers included Jennifer Rodriguez of Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha and Kate Clark of the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging who stressed the importance of each of these results.

Clark explained how making streets safer for walking and biking allows a healthier life style for the community, especially for the elderly.

“We want to make seniors more connected with their neighborhood. We should help them age into their communities as long as possible and help them be active,” she said.

Other speakers included Jon Wybar of Revolution Recovery. He estimated only one in five Philadelphians composted food waste.

“Composting is long overdue in this city. Some soil takes 300,000 years to be prime. We need to bring it back. In order for these recommendations to get going the city needs to set up guidelines and parameters. We need to be good to our people as a collective group,” said Wybar.

At-large City Council candidate Janice Mason promises to carry out the five policy recommendation if she is elected.

Speaker Liz Robinson of the Energy Coordinating Agency raised concerns from the survey stating that one in three Philadelphians had trouble paying an energy bill.

Robinson wanted to make it clear that the traditional strategy of supply and generation wasn’t working. She said, “It is time for us to take the cleanest, cheapest, safest, quickest energy possible, and that’s energy conservation resources.”

Speaker Diane-Louise Wormley of Health Promotion Council wanted to stress the importance of nutrition, especially for the children who do not have close access to grocery stores and fresh food.

To put things into perspective, Wormley told a story about when she asked a group of students what they eat for breakfast. Wormely said the students replied with a laugh.

“They were honest. They said a bag of chips and a hug,” Wormley said. “If we don’t fix this now, shame on us.”

For more information about the Next Great City 2, visit www.nextgreatcity.org.

Jennifer Lee is a senior broadcast major at Temple University. She is a reporter for philadelphianeighborhoods.com

According to a summary in the proposed budget, Pennsylvania pays $30,248 per year to lock up an inmate. Health care costs account for $4,505 per inmate per year. In contrast, Pennsylvania spends $13,343 per child in school ($4,952 of that in state funds, the rest from federal sources and local property tax revenue).

And none of those numbers include a proposed new state prison in Fayette County, which was canceled last month. According to a Department of Corrections press release, that can be downloaded here, the state prison population stayed at around 51,000 through 2010. (There are also approximately 36,000 more inmates in county lock-ups in the state.) As a result, acting Secretary John Wetzel said there was no need to spend $200 million on the new facility. He also noted that the state under utilizes a boot camp facility in Clearfield County as well as other community corrections programs.

Still, the budget proposal notes that expansion projects will continue at four facilities at a cost of $68.5 million. Those projects would add another 1,260 beds to the prison system. Corbett’s proposed budget also calls for returning 2,140 inmates who are currently housed in Michigan and Virginia under contracts. Ending those contracts would save $29.5 million.

A major problem, though, is that those inmates from Michigan and Virginia would be rejoining an already overcrowded state prison system. According to the governor’s numbers, there will be an estimated 49,787 inmates in the state prison system at the end of 2011 but the estimated capacity for the end of 2011 will be 44,980. By June, 2012, when the expansions are complete, the state prison system will have a capacity of 45,734.

Assuming no spikes or declines in the prison population, the state prison system will be over capacity by 4,053 inmates in June, 2012. With 26 institutions in operation, that means each institution will be housing an average of 156 people more than capacity, approximately nine percent over capacity. That is the capacity of SCI Camp Hill and SCI Greensburg combined.

In his budget address, Corbett noted that the state prison population in 1993 stood at around 24,000 inmates, meaning the prison population has more than doubled. Between the 1990 and 2010 census, the state’s population grew by about 820,000 people or about 6.5 percent. That means more people are being locked up and for longer periods of time.

Just like with budgeting, the commonwealth will either have to increase the prison capacity or reduce the number of people in the system. Corbett’s budget office is working with a $4 billion deficit and he explicitly said in his address that the state, “can’t afford to ask counties in our state to subsist on a prison-based economy” in reference to ending the Fayette County prison. Therefore, embarking on an ambitious prison-building spree is probably off the table for the foreseeable future. While the state needs jobs, building prisons is probably not the ideal job to create.

Sentencing reform

Corbett alluded to the need for sentencing reform in his address as well as the need for more parole officers to help inmates return to the community and reduce recidivism rates. However, he did not offer many specifics. Other state officials, on the other hand, have some ideas that need to balance effective deterrence with a pragmatic approach to reducing the prison population.

In late January, Auditor General Jack Wagner offered a list of recommendations to reduce the state’s prison population. His recommendations build upon previous reforms passed in 2010. Wagner suggests expanding alternative punishment programs for non-violent offenders such as Community Correction Centers (half-way houses), home-based electronic monitoring and the Quehanna motivational boot camp as well as expanding the types of crimes that qualify for those programs. He also suggests ending the practice of allowing counties to send to the state inmates with less serious offenses and less than one year on their sentences.

The last point may be problematic as is would do little more than shift the financial burden from the state general fund to county budgets. According to the Department of Corrections’ 2009 report available here 2,615 inmates sent to state prisons in 2009, or 24.2 percent of total commitments, had minimum sentences of one year or less. That is the size of one of the state’s larger penitentiaries.

In total, Wagner noted that 19,000 inmates or about 39 percent of the prison population are serving time for non-violent offenses. If even some of those inmates could be transferred to alternative programs such as motivational boot camp, intensive home monitoring and half-way houses, Wagner said that the state could place a moratorium on building new prisons.

One other suggestion Wagner offered is passage of Senate Judiciary Chair Stewart Greenleaf’s (R-Bucks/Montgomery) Criminal Justice Reform Act. The bill is SB 100. In a letter discussing the bill, Greenleaf notes that Act 95, passed last year, included a number of his reform recommendations. Greenleaf’s current bill essentially mirrors Wagner’s recommendations and includes $50 million in appropriations to start and expand these alternative sentencing programs but he notes that they would save money in the long run.

One notable statistic from the 2009 Department of Corrections report is that Community Corrections Centers reported 97 walk-away escapes for the year. That was the lowest number since an increase in the population of Community Corrections Centers in 2006. Typically, escapees, once caught, are returned to prison and charged with escape, adding time to the sentence.

The same set of statistics shows that 3,378 of the 10,783 commitments in 2009 were for drug offenses and another 708 were for driving under the influence. In Pennsylvania, drunk drivers typically do not land in state prison until a third or subsequent conviction, while fatal crashes usually fall under other offenses such as homicide by motor vehicle.

The Philadelphia Experiment

In April, 2010 Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced a plan to essentially decriminalize possession of a small amount (less than 30 grams or about an ounce) of marijuana. At the time, Williams estimated that such a move could eliminate 3,000 cases from city courts or about five percent of the caseload. Meanwhile, city police said they would continue to make arrests for marijuana possession and leave punishment decisions to the courts.

Eleven months later, the Philadelphia Weekly magazine looked at the new reality for people charged with possession of a small about of marijuana. The city has set up a Small Amounts of Marijuana diversion program. Under the program, offenders are ordered to pay a $200 fine and attend a three-hour treatment class. The defendants do not get legal representation and their records will be expunged within six months. The city diverted about 80 percent of the 1636 arrests for possession of a small amount of pot to the program and was on track to save $3 million to $5 million for the year.

The story also paints a picture of a disproportionate number of African American youths getting caught up in the system even though whites and blacks report comparable rates of marijuana usage. (Incidentally, the state’s prison population was 49 percent African American, 39 percent white and 11 percent Latino in 2009.) The report also discusses people waiting for their turn in court complaining about the government’s war on pot. What is noticeably absent is a quote from any defendant saying that the experience would keep them from smoking marijuana again. Indeed, one young man featured in the article was going through the system for weed – not for the first time and probably not for the last time.

This brings up the question of whether state-wide reforms of marijuana laws would have a significant impact on the state prison system. Granted, most of the focus right now is on the medicinal use of marijuana, but the question of marijuana decriminalization remains on the table. A March, 2011 Pew survey found support for legalization or at least decriminalization nearly tripling from 16 percent to 45 percent since 1990. That’s still not a majority, but support has been steadily rising, primarily driven by younger voters and people who have attended college. Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department continues to hold that Congress has found it to be a dangerous drug and contends sales support criminal and terrorist organizations. Of course, DOJ cannot selectively stop enforcing laws passed by Congress, though Democrat Jared Polis of Colorado is pushing for federal decriminalization which would allow states to set their own policies.

However, most drug cases fall under state statute. In most possession cases in Pennsylvania, a defendant is not looking at state prison time unless he or she is in possession of a large amount of the drug and intends to sell it. In most possession cases, the defendant will go through a county court system and serve any prison time or probation there. It is only habitual offenders and repeat probation violators who even see the possibility of serving time in a state prison. Therefore, state-wide decriminalization would also have to give dealers a pass in order to have any appreciable impact on the state prison population. Furthermore, it would also have to offer retroactive immunity to have an immediate impact as those already sentenced would otherwise have to finish their sentences. On the other hand, Philadelphia’s experiment would likely pay the same dividends locally if implemented statewide.

All things considered, Corbett’s prison budget is a necessary expense. It would certainly not be prudent to simply cut the funding and turn those inmates loose. On the other hand, it is an opportunity to revisit the state’s sentencing guidelines and policies to ensure that violators receive appropriate punishment and treatment.

This could be the new rallying cry of about 4,000 PA liquor store clerks who are members of United Food and Commercial Workers LU 1776.  These people could lose their family-sustaining jobs if the Republican-controlled legislature and Republican Governor Tom Corbett have their way.

Privatizing liquor stores will not reduce the cost of government and, in fact, after making a one-time killing on the sale of the stores, the state will lose hundreds of millions annually in revenues.

As this transcends from concept to reality, the current right-wing members of the Republican Party will turn a blind eye while their plundering cohorts peddle the stores to their friends and major contributors.  So much for the party of “family values.”

When prohibition ended in the mid-1930s it was the church-going voters (mostly Republicans) who demanded Pennsylvania maintain strict control of alcoholic beverages.  Today only this state and Utah remain where whiskey and wines are marketed from the government to the consumer.

While Utah is quickly explained away as Mormons and loons, Pennsylvania maintained its quaint reluctance to modernize.  The reason was, in a major role reversal, unions and Democrats joined in a powerful alliance to thwart attempts to sell the stores.

Quite possibly, until this year, when the threat grew eminent, church goers tipped the scales in favor of keeping stores under government control.   The change is about the strange alliance between voters holding “family values” above all and operatives who practice the capitalist, Fascist business patterns that erode the middle class.  These myopic Republicans (and a few bought Democrats) believe all financial transactions are better done by capitalists.   Profits are intended for the wealthy few, never for the middle class or taxpayers in general.

What is supposed to be wrong with the current system?  Why should booze be marketed like used cars, orange juice, towels, blouses, etc?  Should we really condone mass marketing techniques with special low prices on loss leaders?

What’s wrong with the state plowing the profits back into the general operations of government?

What’s wrong with workers making enough pay to buy houses, new cars and send their kids to college?

Should 4,000 people (and their families) continue to be bona fide members of a strong middle class or should we stand by while the profits are sucked off to Arkansas?

Selling to minors in state stores is literally unheard of.  Will that concern continue when stores are privatized?

Instead of selling our alcohol control retail outlets, legislators should look at bringing tobacco products under the same control.

This pundit both smokes and drinks, moderately.  Both products cause social problems that can be costly to our government to fix.  Imbibers and users shouldn’t be looking for bargains or convenience.

There are 5 days until the November 2^nd midterm elections.  If you listen to the news pundits and political pollsters, Republicans are poised to win big this cycle, up-and-down the ballot, not only in House and Senate but also races for Governor and state legislative chambers across the country. It’s an exciting time for our Party and the nation as we stand on the brink of taking our country back.

Just think about what our country has been through over the last cycle. Four years under the failed Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda of tax hikes, government takeovers, and reckless spending has killed more jobs and stalled America’s path to recovery. Americans are fed up with the Democrats’ hyper-liberal policies being pushed against their will, and simply can no longer afford a Democrat monopoly in Washington. It’s time to fire Pelosi and retire Reid and sweep out the Democrat majorities in Congress so that we can begin to get America back on the right track and back to work.

We all know the liberal Democrat establishment will do anything to hold on to their grip of power in Washington.  Unless our Republican candidates win decisively on November 2nd, their team of lawyers, liberal shadow organizations and labor unions will be challenging every last vote.  That’s why despite the groundswell of support our candidates are receiving from voters and the momentum our Party is carrying to the ballot box, we all know this fight isn’t over.  Until every single last vote is tallied, our work is not done.

In order to protect our hard-fought victories, we have put together a winning ground game to efficiently and effectively turnout every last vote.  One thing I know for sure is that no one wants to witness a repeat of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race which ended in the election of Al Franken to the U.S Senate. If you recall, Minnesota’s Norm Coleman was ahead on Election Night by over 700 votes, only to lose in the end to Al Franken. This outcome serves as a glaring and painful reminder to voters that we can never take any election for granted and that every last vote counts.

Last week, in Pennsylvania’s 8^th congressional district, it was revealed that Democrats and their liberal special interests were engaged in questionable GOTV schemes and other misleading early vote tactics. Pennsylvania is not an isolated incident in this cycle.  Already reports are emerging from Las Vegas where Republican voters are heading to the voting booth only to discover their ballots have been pre-checked for Senator Harry Reid.  We’ve also seen multiple other states including Illinois and New York, egregiously late in mailing out absentee ballots to our overseas American service members, potentially disenfranchising those who proudly wear the uniform and sacrifice to protect our freedom.

We must continue to fight, by speaking to our colleagues, neighbors, friends and family to spread the word.  We must continue to fund our Republican Victory Program to help our candidates succeed.  We cannot waste this opportunity by limping over the finish line; this has to be a united sprint through the finish.  After all of the hard work and long hours, we can’t wake up on November 3^rd realizing that we didn’t push hard enough.

Help us prevent more Al Frankens from grabbing victory from the hands of Republicans.  Show your support today at NOMOREFRANKENS.com!

Rob Tornoe is a syndicated cartoonist who most recently drew cartoons on Pennsylvania politics for PolitickerPA.com. Follow him on Twitter or send him an e-mail.

Earlier this month, Gov. Ed Rendell opined that the Republican Party was being taken over by “wackos.” But Rendell, always a paragon of restraint, clarified his statement later, saying that “there are clearly elements of the Republican Party that are totally wacked out.” But “by no means are all Republican candidates wacked-out… fruit loops.” And Rendell added that he doesn’t consider either Corbett or Toomey to be in that “wacked-out fruit loop” category.

While Rendell’s belated benediction might relieve angst for Corbett and Toomey, most voters seemed not to pay much attention to the governor’s latest verbal pyrotechnics. In fact, voters appear to consider neither Corbett nor Toomey to be wackos. If voters were to describe the GOP candidates this year, the word they would probably use is not wackos, but winners.

Certainly the polls thus far support that conclusion. The latest authoritative Real Clear Politics averages have Corbett up some 12 points over his Democrat opponent and Toomey up 9 points. These are impressive leads in a state where a 10-point win is considered a landslide.

Actually, Corbett’s lead only mildly surprises. With some exceptions, his candidacy and career have been well within the mainstream of the state’s centrist-moderate political tradition. Corbett hails back to a long line of Republican gubernatorial moderates, including Bill Scranton, Ray Shafer, Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge. True, Corbett has moved to the right somewhat, but he is still well within what has been the ideological consensus prevailing in the state’s Republican Party.

Toomey, however, is another story. To wit, four years ago, even two years ago, Toomey was generally considered too conservative to be a serious candidate. Indeed, in some respects he was right of Rick Santorum, once the reigning enfant terrible of the far right. That Toomey is very conservative is beyond debate. If he is elected, he will arguably be the most conservative U.S senator Pennsylvania has elected since before the New Deal days. Still, some of his opponents have unfairly tried to paint him as the next Jesse Helms. He is not that. Rather, he is a politician that has consistently taken a series of what could be called classically conservative “Burkean” positions on key public policy issues. Conservative he is. Kook he is not.

Toomey’s lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 97 percent; Santorum’s is just 88 percent. Pollster.com has ranked Toomey 98 percent more conservative during his three terms in Congress than all other members of Congress back to 1995. Santorum himself once called Toomey “too conservative” for Pennsylvania. Moreover, Toomey has been at the forefront of efforts to drive moderates out of the GOP.

Yet in today’s political environment, Toomey is perceived almost as a mainstream candidate, now comfortably ahead of his Democratic opponent in a state where Democrats out register Republicans by a whopping 1.2 million voters.

The obvious question: Why is Toomey so well positioned some 45 days from the November election? And what does it reveal about American politics approaching President Obama’s first midterm election?

These are all easier questions to ask than to answer. Part of Toomey’s success lies in his opponent’s failure. Sestak, a party maverick who is often savagely critical of the Washington establishment, leads a Democratic party markedly less enthusiastic about his candidacy. Recent events suggest both the state and national parties are rallying resources to the Sestak candidacy, and the race may become closer. Toomey, however, has led a united and zealous GOP throughout the campaign, while Sestak has struggled for party support.

But Toomey’s ascendency owes more to the zeitgeist of the times, the temper of the country, and growing voter alienation from the president and his party. Conservative policies as well as conservative politicians are more in favor this year than at any time since 1994. Voters are very concerned about government spending, debt and regulation. And they have turned sharply against much of the Obama agenda because of the administration’s perceived failure to improve the economy while spending massive amounts of money.

The electorate is out of patience, and Democrats seem increasingly to be out of time. This explains more than anything how a candidate as conservative as Pat Toomey, talented though he may be, is running so strongly in a state that historically has eschewed candidates of either right or left extremes. Toomey is such a candidate, and he does little to conceal it. And why should he? Voters seem not to care.

The shifting political tides are raising both Republican boats and conservative Republicans’ expectations. For generations, Pennsylvania conservatives have been content to be the power behind the throne, influencing who gets to run and who wins.

Now, conservatives want both the power and the throne. No longer content to play the wizard behind the curtain, they want to take that curtain down. Toomey is in the vanguard of that transformation. Whether he succeeds or fails will determine the trajectory of state and national politics for a long time after Election Day.

The writers are, respectively, a professor of Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College and a managing partner of Michael Young Strategic Research. Politically Uncorrected, their syndicated column, is published here regularly.

Consider state budget woes.

Pennsylvania faces an unprecedented gap between revenue and expenses in 2011 as additional federal stimulus funding allotments dry up, the bills mount for the state pension and health care funds, and the costs of government continue to rise.

The numbers are larger, but this is nothing new.

When George M. Leader took office in 1955, he faced a deficit of several hundred million, a sizable amount at the time. His plan was to implement a graduated income tax that Senate Republicans promptly stonewalled.

Besides implementing numerous efficiencies, Leader had no choice but to increase the sales tax from 1 percent to 3 percent to raise desperately needed revenue.

Milton Shapp faced similar problems in 1971. The General Assembly agreed to create Pennsylvania’s first income tax that year and to implement numerous budget cuts at the same time.

Similarly, Dick Thornburgh inherited a deficit of at least $100 million. His answer was to cut government costs. He was able to stave-off a tax increase.

And Robert P. Casey encountered a record deficit of nearly $2 billion in his second term. He had to cut costs, furlough employees and temporarily raise the income tax.

Unless the next governor implements huge programmatic cuts that will severely hurt people, he can’t practically avoid a combination of surgical cuts and across-the-board revenue enhancements.

As Leader, Shapp, Thornburgh and Casey knew, there simply wasn’t another way. Americans don’t like to hear that their taxes might go up, even by small amounts. Practicality, however, might well dictate otherwise.

Then there is the issue of growing corrections spending. At the end of Leader’s term in 1959, there were barely 6,000 state inmates and the corrections budget hardly scratched $100 million. Today there are nearly 50,000 inmates, and that doesn’t include those incarcerated in county prisons or in federal penitentiaries located in the state.

For fiscal year 2010-11, the Department of Corrections will spend nearly $1.75 billion. That’s a double-digit increase from just a few years ago.

When Gov. Ed Rendell took office, corrections spending was at about $1.3 billion with an inmate population of 38,000. The growth in inmate numbers began to attract attention at least as far back as the 1970s. When Thornburgh took office, growing demands on the state correctional system caused him to create a separate Department of Corrections and remove that function from a bureau within the attorney general’s office.

Today’s mandatory minimum sentences, growing inmate health care and facility costs and other expenses add up to an expensive system. Consider that it will soon cost $30,000 per inmate per year. One can go to Penn State University for about $5,000 less per year.

This is no easy problem to solve, and the demands on the correctional system will only continue to grow.

Then there are energy issues. There’s much to discuss here. Suffice it to say that the development of today’s renewable energy sources requires public sector financial support.

If Pennsylvania is to continue to support the development of wind and solar technology — to name a few — state incentive grants and other financial backing are absolutely necessary and will have to be budget items.

Finally, there are many more issues, but I will touch on one more where history can offer the next governor some guide: state parks.

Earlier administrations supported bond issues as well as revenue from oil and gas leases and the general fund to fund park expansion and infrastructure.

Interestingly, long-term environmental cabinet secretary Maurice Goddard was convinced that state parks provided needed and inexpensive respites to working people, especially in times of economic downturns.

He convinced many governors and legislators of this and, as a policy, worked to have a state park within 25 miles of each Pennsylvanian. Today, Pennsylvania’s award-winning parks face disinvestment, waning revenue and some might be faced with mothballing if there isn’t at least level state funding support.

This, indeed, would be a drastic departure from the policies of Leader, Shapp, Thornburgh, Casey and virtually every other 20th-century Pennsylvania governor. The list goes on.

Cutting government and its costs comes at tremendous costs and those costs aren’t about just dollars and cents.

What citizen doesn’t want a balanced state budget, good roads, clean and safe parks, a sound correctional system, quality education for our children, public health services that stave-off infectious diseases and overall quality government services?

Now, the next question is: Are we willing to pay for these services just like we would those services that we consume in the private marketplace?

These are questions that each citizen can ponder and on which they can reach their own conclusions.

The next governor has unprecedented difficult choices between cuts and revenue enhancements. There are no easy answers. But such problems have been addressed before through fair and balanced combinations.

The writer is a historian at Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. This op-ed was first published by The Patriot-News.