Exciting news for Pennsylvania's jobless, poor, children and elderly: The governor has left not only the state, but the continent!
Tom Corbett, R-Drillers-Sandusky-Lotterygate, is on a 10-day spring break in Brazil. His image managers have dubbed the junket a "Jobs First Mission," and they couldn't wait to report that it is already working!
During a Brazilian Roundtable (a meeting of business and government leaders, not a group bikini-waxing session), Mr. Corbett announced Tuesday that a hydraulic cylinder manufacturer will establish its first U.S.-based production facility in Chambersburg, Franklin County.
The deal will create 74 new jobs. Someday.
At about the same time, General Electric announced the elimination of 950 jobs at its locomotive plant in Erie. The global corporation built on the backs of generations of working-class American employees and consumers is branching out to greener pastures in Texas, where unions and environmental regulation are as scarce as gingerbread lattes.
The GE plant in Erie will still employ more than 4,000, but who could blame its workers for looking over their shoulders, especially with Mr. Corbett for an advocate? So far, his mission has a net loss of 876 jobs (950 if you're a cynic who doesn't count jobs until they actually exist).
But let's not focus on the negative, as we in the Lying Liberal Media are prone to do. Chambersburg is definitely probably maybe getting 74 new jobs. Yay!
Of course, a lot has to happen before the ribbon-cutting. A facility has to be readied, and while Mr. Corbett announced no concessions to the company, he has been more than generous with taxpayer money in the recent past. The sweetheart deal he offered to Royal Dutch Shell PLC (annual profits of about $30 billion) includes a 15-year tax break worth $66 million. Shell has promised to create a minimum of 7,000 jobs in Beaver County.
The tax break is guaranteed. The jobs, not so much.
But what a lucky break for Chambersburg, where the unemployment rate is 6.2 percent. This is low compared to the state rate of 8.1 percent, which remains higher than the national rate of 7.7 percent. In the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Metro area, the unemployment rate is 9.8 percent, highest in the state for 36 straight months.
Maybe we'll get a new Brazilian steakhouse or two out of Mr. Corbett's trip. Or some actual Brazilians. First lady Susan Corbett went along to promote tourism, selling people who have access to some of the world's most desirable vacation destinations on how divine the Poconos are in the spring.
The Corbetts' vacation is sponsored by Team Pennsylvania, a nonprofit with some highly profitable corporations for investors, including energy companies, big banks, health care providers and insurers and Wal-Mart. While everyday Pennsylvanians may eventually see some benefits from the trip, Mr. Corbett is really in the Southern Hemisphere to lend the public prestige of an American governor's office to private firms soliciting business.
As always, Mr. Corbett is hard at work for his corporate sponsors. They get the lion's share of his time, concern and attention.
Everyday Pennsylvanians get whatever is left over.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, has never had a bikini wax, but will try one to help create Pennsylvania jobs. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter