{"id":22813,"date":"2014-08-11T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22813"},"modified":"2014-08-11T07:00:01","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T11:00:01","slug":"oped-wrong-for-state-and-rafferty-to-back-drilling-on-parkland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=22813","title":{"rendered":"OP\/Ed.: Wrong for state and Rafferty to back drilling on parkland"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kathi Cozzone<\/strong>, Chester County Commissioner<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cozzone\"<\/a>

Kathi Cozzone<\/p><\/div>\n

On Tuesday afternoon, we saw over twenty committed citizens standing outside my opponent\u2019s office protesting the Senator\u2019s vote to lease state-owned parkland to drilling companies. In addition to being harmful to our forests and parks, this vote was part of a larger problem happening in Harrisburg right now.<\/p>\n

The vote to lease state parkland to drilling companies was a vote for the Fiscal Code, or the vehicle that drives the budget. After years of irresponsible governing from Governor Corbett and Republicans in the Legislature, Pennsylvania was faced with a gaping revenue hole in the budget and we didn\u2019t have enough money to fund even the austere Corbett\/Rafferty budget. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of closing the budget shortfall with a few common-sense responsible policies, like a severance tax on Marcellus Shale drilling and the expansion of Medicaid, my opponent supported a budget and Fiscal Code that used a number of one-time fixes to give the illusion of a balanced budget. Included in these one-time fixes and Band-Aid solutions was the leasing of state-owned parkland, something he promised he would not do, and something that he said himself he would have looked closer at if it wasn\u2019t hidden in a bill.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time we have leaders in Harrisburg that care more about Pennsylvania and Pennsylvanians than they do about party politics. It\u2019s time we have a legislature that works for the people and not one that acts as a rubber stamp for Governor Corbett\u2019s bad policies.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for a change in Harrisburg and I applaud the constituents in the 44th<\/sup> Senate District that are working to hold Senator Rafferty accountable.<\/p>\n

Kathi Cozzone is a Chester County Commissioner and the Democratic candidate for state Senate in the 44th District.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kathi Cozzone, Chester County Commissioner On Tuesday afternoon, we saw over twenty committed citizens standing outside my opponent\u2019s office protesting the Senator\u2019s vote to lease state-owned parkland to drilling companies. In addition to being harmful to our forests and parks, this vote was part of a larger problem happening in Harrisburg right now. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,7],"tags":[5958,4444,1285,5959,5941,430],"class_list":["post-22813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-drilling","tag-election-2014","tag-kathi-cozzone","tag-parkland","tag-sen-john-rafferty","tag-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}