RealClearPennsylvania Articles

In December 1776, General George Washington led a ragged crew of patriots from the Pennsylvania shoreline and across the Delaware River in a bold strike to surprise the British Army, staving off the capture of Philadelphia. Washington later recalled “trembling for the fate of America,” as he watched the boats cross the river ahead of what would be a key victory for the Revolutionary army in securing liberty for the United States. It would be, as Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration Benjamin Rush remarked, “victory or death.” The Delaware was but of one...

On December 18, Lackawanna College broke ground on its new Career & Technical Innovation (CTI) Center in Scranton. While the ceremony marked the start of construction, the project itself reflects a broader shift in how workforce development, higher education, and economic policy must align to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economy. The groundbreaking follows the College’s recent announcement of three additional CTI-focused centers across Pennsylvania. Together, these initiatives signal a deliberate move away from isolated workforce programs toward a systems-based model, one...

“… a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy… To the evil of monarchy we have added hereditary succession… the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves… the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity.”  – Thomas Paine, Common Sense On January 10, 1776, Robert Bell did something that could have landed him in prison for treason against King George III of England. In his small shop on Third Street in downtown Philadelphia, Bell printed an incendiary 47-page pamphlet, published...

Pennsylvania stands at a pivotal moment. Families are stretched thin by higher costs, and employers are weighing whether to invest here or elsewhere. We can’t afford to ignore these warning signs. All the while, the commonwealth will remain in the national spotlight as the most important swing state. Clearly, 2026 presents unique opportunities and challenges. Today is the first day of Pennsylvania’s legislative session, and lawmakers must focus on reforms that put people first, protect taxpayers, and restore fiscal discipline. Many lawmakers are already leading on these...

The Parker family lives in Philadelphia’s Mayfair. The father works as an Uber driver. The mother works at a local car dealership. They make ends meet but don’t make enough to send their son to Father Judge High School – even with financial aid. Charter schools have a waiting list longer than Roosevelt Boulevard. And the son is forced to attend Lincoln High School. When Josh goes off to Lincoln, he enters a school where 78% of students can’t do grade-level math, and 68% can’t read at grade level. But with no alternative, the Parkers drop off Josh at Lincoln,...

Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis surprised many when he announced his intentions to opt in to a new federal scholarship program — a program championed by Republican lawmakers and codified by the Working Families Tax Cut (also known as the “One Big, Beautiful Act”). “It supports donors to give more money to our schools,” Polis said. “I mean, I would be crazy not to.” Polis is absolutely correct: Governors would be out of their minds not to participate. Unfortunately, many of Polis’s fellow Democratic governors have staunchly opposed this...

Last month, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed Pennsylvania's budget into law. While this signatory duty of the governor may appear unceremonious, this year’s budget took a near-record of 130 days to pass through the General Assembly for the governor to effectuate. A large portion of the debate, and in turn the impasse, revolved around the price tag. While many Republicans wanted the budget to hold steadfast at $47.9 billion, the final product allotted $50.1 billion to the 2025-2026 budget. With this knowledge, one may ask how this garnered the votes necessary to pass. After all, Democrats...

From the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, Pennsylvania has led the way in American energy production. But now it’s clear that the AI-fueled tech industry boom is poised to push our electrical grid to the brink. The question is: Will Pennsylvania keep its place as America’s energy leader? Or will we fall behind our neighboring states and leave consumers stuck with sky-high electric bills in the process? Pennsylvania is already starting to lose its grip as the region’s leading power player. Our neighboring states are making moves that could position them ahead...

Kamala Harris addressed the Democratic National Committee last week with a new message: “Both parties have failed to hold the public’s trust.” When she mentioned “the future,” someone shouted “You!” Her book tour for “107 Days” expands to the critical early primary state South Carolina and cities with large Black populations that could give her an ironclad lead on “Super Tuesday.” Summer of Brat 2.0 approaches. Adrift in a “stuck culture” that has lost any sense of novelty, Americans willingly settle for reboots....

The Pennsylvania state House is Democratic-run – by one seat. The state Senate is Republican-run – by two seats. Meanwhile, at the national level, the U.S. House has a GOP majority, but if the party loses three seats, then it will shift to Democrats. The GOP in Pennsylvania has three members of Congress who won by less than 2% in 2024. The Democratic governor, running for reelection, wants to run for president in 2028. His likely GOP gubernatorial opponent is the state Treasurer – the leading vote-getter in Pennsylvania history. To paraphrase: “Fasten your seatbelts,...

If historians ever mark the moment when Pennsylvania broke free from a decade of self-inflicted economic drag, it may be found not at a ribbon-cutting, but in a state budget bill. Buried inside the Commonwealth’s FY 2025–26 budget was the landmark adoption of sweeping reforms to Pennsylvania’s permitting bureaucracy. The “Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development,” or SPEED program, ensures that state government permitting can no longer operate without transparency or deadlines. Critical to the bureaucratic reform is a “deemed...

Plenty of ink has been spilled and plenty of congratulatory statements have been issued about this year’s budget agreement in Harrisburg. But on one of the most urgent issues facing our Commonwealth, the reality hasn’t changed: Pennsylvania’s home care system is in crisis, the governor and legislative leaders know it, and they did just about nothing in this budget to fix it. More than 400,000 Pennsylvanians rely on in-home care to live safely and independently. They are seniors, adults with disabilities, and medically fragile children who depend on reliable, consistent...

In an interview with RealClearPennsylvania, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick listed his accomplishments in his first year in office, including the “Big 5”: the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal, the $20 billion Amazon data centers investment, the Energy Summit bringing $92 billion in investments to the commonwealth, and the $5 billion deal bringing Korean firm Hanwha to the Philadelphia Shipyard. The ships built per year will go from 1.5 vessels to 20, creating 5,000 new jobs. And Westinghouse announced at this summer’s Pittsburgh Energy Summit that it will build 10 nuclear power plants in...

In the four decades since James Cameron introduced the world to a cybernetic assassin sent from a dystopian future, new RealClearPennsylvania/Emerson polling indicates nearly three-quarters of Pennsylvanians have seen “The Terminator.” Pennsylvanians are keeping a watchful eye on the rise of the machines. When surveying the landscape of Artificial Intelligence, Pennsylvanians are not necessarily seeing a helping hand.  The mood across Pennsylvania suggests a far more skeptical, if not outright fearful, outlook. The AI skepticism is broad-based. Nearly half of Pennsylvanians,...

In early November, U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson’s (R-Ohio) simple Affordable, Reliable, and Clean Energy Security Act underscored the titanic shift in the public psyche over the past decade. Note, it’s neither the “Clean and Reliable Act” nor the “Clean and Affordable Act.” Instead, affordability gets top billing. This is no accident: Electricity costs are skyrocketing, and affordability is top of mind for Americans. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports average retail revenues per kWh increased in 46 states since last August. Those rates...

Corey O’Connor sits in his downtown transition office fielding calls and reviewing appointments, friendly and businesslike, considerably more buttoned-down than his father, Bob, the late mayor whose ready smile and bouffant hair made him a beloved figure in this city for decades. The younger O’Connor, who will be sworn in as Pittsburgh’s 62nd mayor on January 5, speaks in practical terms about permits, childcare programs, and calling ten companies a week. His message is simple: Pittsburgh needs to get back to basics, and Democrats need to prove they can run cities...

In the spring of 1855, school officials in Pottsville gathered to debate a question that has echoed across centuries: how to protect their community from a deadly epidemic. The year before, smallpox had closed schools early, leaving behind sickness, fear, and death in its wake. Determined not to repeat that trauma, the Pottsville school board passed a resolution requiring every child to present a physician’s certificate of vaccination before being admitted to class in the coming school year. The editors of the Miners’ Journal, the region’s leading newspaper, applauded the...

Warehouses have been growing tremendously over the past decade in Pennsylvania. In our recent report conducted with support from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, we examined the impacts of warehouse development in Pennsylvania, focusing on rural areas.   We studied three effects: economic impacts, transportation impacts, and community impacts over the ten-year period between 2014 and 2023.  The key findings in our economic analysis included growth in the number of warehousing establishments in the General Warehousing sector, as identified through the Bureau of Labor...

This fall, there was widespread coverage of an outright horrible group chat involving numerous members of various Young Republican organizations. Politico detailed their racially charged messages. Among the chats involved the [now former] nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel, “an independent federal agency that protects federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, particularly retaliation against whistleblowers.” That guy texted he had a “Nazi streak,” whatever that is. As The Hill reported before he withdrew his nomination, “The Republican...