Category: Bob Guzzardi

Bob Guzzardi — Pennsylvania political activist in the 2010s.

Santorum Not The Guy

Santorum Not The Guy  is being published with the  permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi

By Bob Guzzardi

Our former senator, Rick Santorum, has thrown his hat in ring for the Republican presidential nomination.

Santorum is not a Tea Party guy. He is an establishment insider, big government Republican. He is a big spender, union financed and an  “earmarker”.

The Club for Growth notes that he supported No Child Left Behind in 2001, which greatly expanded the federal government’s role in education; the massive new Medicare drug entitlement in 2003  that now costs taxpayers over $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities; and that he voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks

I will grant that the Club for Growth does say nice things about him regarding some things — especially his support for broad-based tax cuts — but they don’t balance out.

I think his anti-growth anti-free trade votes are a result of his close ties to Philadelphia unions, like John Dougherty’s IBEW 98 which supported him openly.

He is no “fiscal conservative.”

I have met him and found him to be a  very slick talker and unbelievably arrogant.

He would be a less than ideal candidate. The people of Pennsylvania handily rejected him in 2006 with him getting 797,000 less votes than he did six years before — and fewer votes in every county.

Anyone who picks the less than effective and well paid BrabenderCox as a consultant is not going to do well.

And of course many of us will not forget that then big government Senator Rick Santorum, choosing power over stated principle, hypocritically and relentlessly, backed union-financed Big Government Democrat Senator Arlen Specter against fiscal common sense Pat Toomey.

We all know the country would have been better off with Senator Pat Toomey’s ahead-of-the-curve understanding of the devastating economic effects of out of control Big Government debt and deficits. 

 

Santorum Not The Guy

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations — The article is being published with the kind permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi.

The House Republicans are considering giving $ 603,543,000, in this year alone to billionaire private corporations. This is $181, 113,000 more than Governor Corbett proposed.

The entire cost of SB 1, Vouchers/EITC over four years, is: $ 734, 947, 772

SB 1 is designed to subsidize, as required by Article III, section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the education of children, particularly the poor caught in violent and educationally dysfunctional schools and middle class struggling economically.

In comparison consider the how the state subsidizes  education’s  Princes and Princesses:

UPENN’s president Amy Gutmann’s compensation: $1,367,000 and Penn State’s Graham( $800, 592 according to Journal of Higher Education) flies in one of Penn State’s three airplanes from its own airport. UPITT’s Chancellor;$600,045, Temple U President Anne Weaver Hart; $602, 403) UPITT Chancellor Mark Nordenberg received a 5.7% increase in 2010, $26,500, for a total annual salary of $486,000. This is base salary and not total compensation.

A change in course directing money away from billionaire private corporations to those who need it most may be an idea worth considering. Misallocating taxpayer resources is not in the public interest or advance the general welfare.

 

 

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty  is being published with the kind permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi

Temple University President Ann Weaver Hart is paid   $707,947.00  annually.

Temple University’s 2011 budget is over a Billion Dollars –$1,073,697,000  not including Temple University Health System

The House Republicans have proposed giving Temple University $129,387,000 of The Forgotten Taxpayer’s earnings and savings overriding the Governor’s proposed $82,487,000. As a “nonprofit”, Temple University pays no local property taxes and no State or Federal taxes other than payroll deductions from all employees.

Is subsidizing Pennsylvania’s billionaires and millionaires the best use of Pennsylvanian’s earning and savings?

UPENN President Amy Gutmann is paid $1,367,000 in 2011; 15th highest in 2010

UPENN’s, a private nonprofit corporation has 2011 budget of $6.07 Billion with an endowment of $5.6 Billion (2010)

The House Republicans have proposed financing UPENN with $ 85,282,000 of The Forgotten Taxpayer’s earnings and savings reducing the Governor’s proposed $ 87,771,000. As a private “nonprofit” corporation, UPENN pays no local property taxes and no State or Federal taxes other than payroll deductions from all employees.

Is subsidizing Pennsylvania’s billionaires and millionaires the best use of Pennsylvanian’s earning and savings?

Misallocating resources lowers the standard of living for all of us.

Forcing the many taxpayers to fund the few who benefit is not good policy.

 

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty

AARP Sweet Scam On Seniors

AARP Sweet Scam On Seniors — Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi pointed out the other day that the AARP  is a “very profitable insurance company pretending to be do-gooder.”

Bob notes that organization, which claims to be an advocate for seniors, has $2.2 billion in total assets and generated over $1.4 billion in revenue in 2009.

AARP, through its sale of “Medigap” insurance policies is going to benefit greatly from Obamacare which guts the Medicare Advantage program by $200 billion and which the AARP polices are being written to replace.

AARP Sweet Scam On Seniors

Education Revolution In Pa?

Education Revolution In Pa? — Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi reports that the Pennsylvania State Senate Education Committee is preparing to consider, tomorrow, a revolutionary education reform package that could very well make the recent shrieking in Wisconsin by the special-interest child haters sound like whispers.

Among the reforms that Bob says will be addressed in a series of bills will be:

–Empowering school districts to furlough teachers if the economic conditions should warrant it

— Allowing districts to suspend non-essential reports to the state Department of Education in years state education funding declines

— Requiring a two-thirds vote by school boards to raise property taxes

–Allowing districts to hire registered nurses rather than school certified nurses

–Changing public advertising requirements to allow the use of the internet

–Allowing school districts to bid single prime on construction projects. (It has been estimated that this will cut construction costs by 10 percent)

–Allowing districts to hire those who have graduate degrees in business or finance as superintendents ending the incestuous education certification requirement.

–Ending the state mandate for 10 paid sick days and paid sabbatical leave for teachers.

The big one not on the table is once again empowering school boards to replace striking teachers but if the report is accurate tomorrow will be the start of something good.

 

Education Revolution In Pa?