April 05, 2007

Herzenberg on Pennsylvania Newsmakers

See Pennsylvania Policy Blog contributor and MIT-trained economist Stephen Herzenberg discuss Turnpike Privatization and the broken link between wages and productivity on Pennsylvania Newsmakers.

Our favorite line here at the blog was Stephen's response to criticism of public investments in the transportation, education, and health care:

"If you think you are going to deal [without making those investments] with globalization, with a decaying infrastructure, more than half of your workforce having only a high school education and with your companies bearing the burden of health care costs on their backs as they try to compete with China, I think you are smoking something."

Here is the link to watch the program Media Player Required.

Nice to see Stephen living up to our promise of being substantive and at times irreverent.

Posted by Price at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2007

What This Blog is About

There are lots of sources about the politics of public policy and law making in Pennsylvania. In fact many media accounts often focus exclusively on the politics of the process and give short shrift to the merits of specific policy proposals. It's a style of coverage called horse-race journalism.

The Pennsylvania Policy Blog aims to provide a horserace-free discussion of public policy proposals and coverage of the larger economic, social, and cultural issues that the proposals are intended to address.

So here you won't find much discussion about what legislative leaders will benefit from what legislation, or about whether Democrats or Republicans are winning the battle for public opinion.

Instead what you'll find is a substantive (if sometimes irreverent) discussion of whether proposed policies actually have any chance of accomplishing the goals their authors proclaim. We'll suggest constructive alternatives. We'll also spend time asking whether the problems current policy proposals seek to address are in fact the most important problems facing Pennsylvania today.

The Pennsylvania Policy Blog is a project of the Keystone Research Center and the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center

Posted by Publius at 11:20 AM | Comments (1)