RealClearPennsylvania Articles

The buggy whip endures. Not, of course, as a commonly used piece of equipment to spur on a steed or two on your daily travels, but as a short-hand epithet deployed in conversations about the need to adapt or perish in the face of technological change and innovation. “It’s really easy to see, in a big breakthrough, that the horse-and-buggy guys are going to go out of business,” said White House AI czar David Sacks at Sen. Dave McCormick’s historic AI and Energy Summit this past July in Pittsburgh. What wasn’t easy to see, said Sacks, was greater access to...

Suburban Philadelphia voters are in the midst of a political science experiment – and they may not even be consciously participating in it. Today, Democrats control each of the four Philadelphia suburban courthouses – not only the governing commissioners (County Council in Delaware County), but also, every row office except for a handful in “purple” Bucks County. They also hold 80% of the legislative seats and 75% of the congressional delegation. Democrats hold similar dominance in those suburban townships, boroughs, and school boards – often without Republicans...

In recent weeks, RealClearPennsylvania introduced the project to explore southwest Pennsylvania’s political and social culture, particularly as it relates to trust. As we’ve learned, trust isn’t just about confidence in government, though that is important. Trust is also about confidence in society, companies, and institutions. None of these groups are performing particularly well, though there is a marked improvement in trust for local institutions as opposed to national ones. Today we dive deeper into the data from our first poll, examining differences by region and...

Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland, by Salena Zito (Center Street, 256 pp., $20.28) On July 13, 2024, a youthful, bespectacled assassin’s bullets cut the hot air above the Butler Farm Show grounds and grazed the ear below Donald Trump’s wispy, straw-like hair. In those seconds, a volunteer firefighter, Corey Comperatore, was killed; two spectators were gravely wounded; and a former president, blood streaking down his cheek, rose and mouthed, “Fight, fight, fight,” an image that fixed itself in the...

On October 28, 1929, a mining engineer from the Susquehanna Collieries Company stood before the Shamokin Rotary Club in Shamokin and painted a rosy picture of the future of the coal industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Anthracite, he assured his audience, was “due for a comeback.” He spoke of modernization, new centralized breakers to process coal, and the bright future awaiting the region’s mineworkers. His words carried weight – this was the industry that had powered homes and factories in the United States for generations while employing more than 150,000 men...

Few investments yield a 16,800% return in just four days, but apparently Pennsylvania gets this outsized return every July. No, it’s not bitcoin.  Nor does it have anything to do with the state’s pension funds. It’s NASCAR.  Every July, more than 100,000 fans descend on Pennsylvania’s Long Pond for NASCAR at the “Tricky Triangle.” The Pocono Raceway remains a family-run operation, first opened in 1968 fueled by a vibrant local racing scene and the advantage of being within a two-hour drive from major cities like New York City and...

The afternoon light filters through the windows at Red Hawk Coffee Roasters in Sharpsburg, catching the steam from U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio's black coffee. The congressman – dark-haired, fit, quietly confident in a gray polo and jeans – sits across from me at a corner table, the place nearly empty on this Monday afternoon. Outside, the remnants of Western Pennsylvania's industrial past line the Allegheny River. Inside, there's just the hum of an espresso machine and the sound of grinding beans to accompany our conversation. Deluzio leans back, considering my question about his...

Pennsylvanians could be forgiven for feeling a bit whipsawed when it comes to recent energy-related news here in the Keystone State. On one hand, the recently signed federal “One Big Beautiful Bill” pulls back from recent progress that has been made in clean energy production, limiting our energy options instead of supporting an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. That means fewer jobs, less economic growth, and an electric grid that will become increasingly strained under continued and unprecedented demand for more power. On the other hand, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick...

When Congress established a new Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) as part of its budget reconciliation package, the intent was clear: Stop rural hospitals from closing. The $50 billion fund – to be distributed over the next five years – was a key concession to secure the votes of senators who worried Medicaid payment cuts included in the legislation would shutter rural hospitals in their states. To participate, states must submit a rural health transformation plan to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this year. Half of the funding will be distributed...

Last week, the RealClearPolitics Institute of News & Information (RCPINI) introduced its current project exploring the loss of trust in southwestern Pennsylvania. As we noted, the loss of trust in society and in our institutions is one of the defining challenges of our times, and one that seems particularly relevant in a region that has witnessed seismic political shifts over the past 20 years. This week we begin diving into our polling results. As mentioned in our initial piece, we partnered with Emerson Polling, one of the most accurate pollsters in the country, to produce a...

One of the defining features of late 20th and early 21st century American politics is the loss of faith in our institutions. A recent poll in U.S. News shows that 85% of Americans say “government officials and other community leaders care more about their own power and influence than what’s best for the people they represent.” While government officials fare particularly poorly, supermajorities of Americans express disappointment with health care leaders, business leaders, and education leaders. It is safe to say there is across-the-board disenchantment with our institutions...

Kristina Akselsen always knew that she wanted to be a math teacher.  Her path took some twists and turns along the way: she was an applied health science major in college and thought about a career in physical therapy. But she just wasn’t as passionate about it, and she kept coming back to math and teaching.  Inspired by an enthusiastic high school math teacher who made learning fun, interesting, and relatable, she dreamed of creating that same spark for her own students some day. But, like so many aspiring educators in Pennsylvania, Krstina’s journey to the classroom...

As with every great industrial leap, the race among states to lead the AI revolution is reaching a fever pitch. We are living through a transformation that could shape the 21st century even more profoundly than railroads and steel defined the late 19th century, or the personal computer and the Internet transformed the close of the 20th. We are now entering the steep part of the hockey-stick curve for AI innovation – when breakthroughs move from research labs and pilot projects into the physical world, driving exponential changes in how we produce energy, manufacture goods, move people...

Is artificial intelligence coming for your job? It may depend on who you voted for in the 2024 presidential election. If you voted for Donald Trump, your job is likely safe. If you voted for Kamala Harris, you have reason to be concerned. Quietly last month, Microsoft released a study of the jobs most and least likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence. The study results track closely to the socioeconomics of the 2024 presidential election and the political realignment sweeping the nation. The jobs most likely to be displaced by artificial intelligence fit the profile of the...

Redistricting is a political process run by politicians for electoral ends. Most often, we only hear about redistricting in the years ending in -0, -1 or -2. The population statistics used to redraw our state and federal legislative districts result from the federal Census conducted every decade. It’s a constitutional duty, under Article I, Section, that the Census is conducted in the year ending in -0 (though the pandemic did delay the 2020 Census). State legislatures receive this Census information late in the -0 year and spend the following year redrawing their districts. Then the...

Many are familiar with the popular British television series “Call the Midwife,” set in post-war London. In the show, nurse midwives are professionals who provide exceptional care to mothers before, during, and after a baby is born. The reality is much the same. Throughout the world, more than 75% of babies are delivered with the help of midwives.  The U.S., though, has much lower rates, with Pennsylvania alone ranking at 16%. Nationally, we have higher levels of maternal and infant mortality than other rich countries.  We are fifty-first in world...

After four years of inflation, uncertainty, and runaway spending, America’s small business owners finally have a reason to breathe easier. Congressional Republicans, including freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan, just passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which was signed into law in July. But with many Pennsylvanians still hurting, it’s important that Washington lawmakers continue enacting pro-growth economic policies to build on the One Big Beautiful Bill. In addition to preventing one of the biggest tax hikes in history, the bill also focused on ways to reduce energy and...

“Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are.”  – Theodore Roosevelt I have vivid memories as a 10-year-old helping my Italian-immigrant grandfather in his one-acre garden of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and I forget what else. I remember the smell of ripe vegetables, soil, and how everything seemed so fragile, as he ever so carefully weeded, watered, and de-leafed his plants. Yet despite that seeming fragility, he produced heaps of the biggest tomatoes and greenest peppers you ever saw, or at least that is how I remember it. The recent AI and Energy summit...

The Keystone State has been buzzing with excitement since the recent announcement detailing a wave of private investment that promises to make the commonwealth a national hub for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and the energy required to fuel it. The $90 billion of investments in data centers, energy, and workforce initiatives – estimated to create tens of thousands of jobs – were announced during an inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at Carnegie Mellon University and attended by President Donald Trump, Gov. Josh...