Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Eating Your Seed Corn


Governor Corbett’s state budget proposal speaks volumes about his priorities.  Oil and gas drillers will get a better deal than they get in any other state with significant Marcellus resources, since the proposed impact fee is much lower than the extraction taxes imposed by other states.  To pay for this largesse, he makes dramatic cuts to higher education.  This means our children will have to incur even larger student loan debts to pay for the education so vital to ensuring their future as well as that of our economy.

Our farmers have an expression for the strategy of sacrificing investments that will pay off in the future for the sake of short term gain.  It’s called “Eating your seed corn".  That sums up perfectly what is going on here.  Critically important investments in our future workers and leaders have been sacrificed.  Well established industries that made enormous campaign contributions are receiving huge breaks.  How do you think that’s going to work out over the long term?

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