Conventional governing is hampering Pennsylvania’s progress. Growing state budgets combined with one-time revenue transfers and targeted tax hikes are delaying the structural reforms essential to improving the quality of life for people who live and work in Pennsylvania.

In the movies, values like hope, joy, and peace ultimately triumph over materialism. Unfortunately, government has yet to grasp that stuff alone doesn’t bring lasting happiness

Pop quiz: What’s the largest spending increase in Governor Tom Wolf’s budget proposal? You might assume education, as the governor has repeatedly insisted the state must reinvest in public schools. Paying for ballooning public pension costs would also be a reasonable guess. But neither is correct.

Governor Wolf is facing a budget situation more serious than any of his predecessors. His proposal includes an additional $691 million in the General Fund for DHS, bringing the department’s total to $11.9 billion. This increase accounts for nearly 89 percent of the total increase in the General Fund for all state agencies, absorbing 38.5 percent of the General Fund and 44.5 percent of all funds. If the historic pattern holds, it will be only a matter of time before Pennsylvania lawmakers w

The enacted $29 billion General Fund budget (a 1.88 percent increase over 2013-2014) and $71.4 billion total operating budget represent Pennsylvania’s highest spending levels ever—exceeding years when federal stimulus dollars were used to balance the budget.

In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama proposed increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. Although it sounds beneficial to low-wage workers, minimum wage hikes fail to reduce poverty and result in fewer jobs. Instead of increasing costs for employers, lawmakers should focus on expanding job opportunities through pro-growth policies, thereby raising wages for all.

Unfortunately, we cannot also support the governor’s “Healthy PA” initiative that would create a new taxpayer-subsidized program for hundreds of thousands of new participants in the unproven and flawed Affordable Care Act health insurance “exchange.” This plan would neither serve our neediest citizens better in the short term nor will it reduce taxpayers’ costs in the long run.

That's why leaders in statehouses across the country should do the right thing and follow Pennsylvania's lead. Instead of waiting for dollars and dictates from D.C. to expand a broken program, our states can save our ailing health care system by fixing Medicaid themselves.

The holidays are a great time to be grateful for the gifts we've received. And, as we remember well, fallen Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed that some Americans have received "gifts" in the form of handouts from the government.