Tom Wolf Has Big Plans

On Tuesday, January 20th, Tom Wolf took the oath of office and became Pennsylvania’s forty-seventh governor. His inauguration speech included a number of interesting points. Some of the items will make great talking points, others warrant a little closer scrutiny.

Wolf had high praise for William Penn’s establishment of the colony built on "tolerance and inclusion". His statement is ironic considering that Wolf excluded one of Pennsylvania’s best known and oldest brands, Yuengling, reportedly because the company’s owner supports right-to-work legislation.

On that note, Governor Wolf’s remarks included a statement about creating "the conditions necessary to bring manufacturing jobs back to our state." One of the things that would ramp up job growth in all sectors (and income growth) would be for Pennsylvania to enact…right-to-work laws. A great by-product of all that job and income growth is population growth too.

Wolf also indicated that in order to get Pennsylvania "back on track" we need a government that is "worthy of our trust". At CAP, we couldn’t agree more. A good first step would be for two recently indicted Representatives from Philadelphia to resign. Governor Wolf has sadly not called for such a commonsense step to be taken, nor has he said much publically about the possible indictment of the Commonwealth’s Attorney General.

We certainly wish the new Governor well, but we hope his actions and his rhetoric line up more through his first term.

Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania (CAP) is a non-profit organization founded to raise the standard of living of all Pennsylvanians by restoring limited government, economic freedom, and personal responsibility. By empowering the Commonwealth’s employers and taxpayers to break state government’s "Iron Triangle" of career politicians, bureaucrats, and Big Government lobbyists, this restoration will occur and Pennsylvania will prosper.