Issues
Read about the top issues affecting Pennsylvania jobs.
Workforce Development
Pennsylvania has a workforce problem - a growing skills gap that is making it difficult for employers to find qualified job candidates to fill open positions. We're fighting to close this gap by working with businesses, educators, students and their families to help build the skilled workforce of tomorrow.
Responsible State Spending
Government should operate within its means: evaluating the effectiveness of current programs; weeding out waste, fraud and abuse in spending; and investing wisely in worthy state-run programs that directly benefit taxpayers.
ENERGY
Stop New Energy Taxes is working to save the Impact Tax that is vital to communities throughout our state.
Pennsylvanians need all energy options and the freedom to choose the best alternative energy choices for their families, not government imposed mandates on energy. The free market ensures the availability of abundant, reasonably priced energy, which is important for healthy businesses that foster job creation.
LABOR LAWS
Employment laws and regulations, as well as Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation and workers’ compensation systems, should strike a balance between the rights of workers and the flexibility employers need to run their business efficiently and effectively. Unfair burdens on business hurt employers’ efforts to grow their businesses and the jobs they provide.
LAWSUIT ABUSE
Pennsylvania’s legal climate has long been ranked as one of the worst in the country and continues to create barriers to economic growth. In fact, the city of Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas has been consistently ranked by the American Tort Reform Association as being one of the worst “Judicial Hellholes” in the nation for the number of mass tort cases flooding the system; an overall lack of legal reform that’s allowed trial lawyers to take advantage of loopholes; a pro-plaintiff slant in the court; and so much more.
Citizens to Protect PA Jobs is working with lawmakers to bring fairness and uniformity to the Commonwealth’s legal system. Despite the enactment of some reforms – including an important Joint and Several Liability Law in 2011 that ended trial lawyers’ attempts to seek out large rewards from deep pocket defendants regardless of their degree of fault – more reforms must be made. This includes ensuring that lawsuits are filed in venues that have some relation to the dispute, so that cases can no longer be filed in historically pro-plaintiff courts like Philadelphia even if the region has no ties to the incident being adjudicated.
In addition, Citizens to Protect PA Jobs is focused on reforming the state’s current system of assessing responsibility for damages in asbestos-related suits. Right now, Philadelphia is well known to be a “hotbed for asbestos litigation,” ranking fourth nationwide in 2017 with 263 new filings, because a lack of communication between the asbestos bankruptcy process and the legal system presents a perfect opportunity to seek additional money for claimants that have may have already been appropriately compensated – and for themselves.
When determining where to invest and expand, companies will often weigh the fairness and predictability of state’s civil justice systems. Implementing these common sense reforms will go a long way toward sending the message that Pennsylvania is open for business.
TAX REFORM
Pennsylvania is a great place for businesses to locate and expand, but our complicated and burdensome tax structure has long driven business opportunities to other states. This includes a Corporate Net Income Tax that is among the highest in the nation at 9.99 percent; a cap on Net Operating Losses and lack of clarity in the Tax Code. Citizens to Protect PA Jobs supports reforms that will bring uniformity to the state’s tax structure, thereby improving Pennsylvania’s competitive edge.
In 2017, the federal government enacted the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act – marking the first time in more than 30 years that significant changes and reforms were made to the Federal Tax Code. This sweeping overhaul simplified and streamlined the overall Code; lowered the federal corporate tax rate from a highly uncompetitive 35 percent rate to 21 percent; allowed for the expense of capital investments to help free up a company’s cash flow and devote more resources toward job creation; and moved the U.S. to a territorial tax system so that businesses are only taxed on the income they earn within the United States’ borders.
The updates to the Tax Code improved our nation’s competitive edge and provided a much needed boost to the economy. The impact of these reforms could be felt almost immediately, with companies across the nation reinvesting their savings from the law back into their facilities and employees. For more information on how the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act has helped to jumpstart the economy, visit www.TaxReformforAmerica.com.