PA Democratic Party politicians celebrate corporate giveaway.
Less than 10 days after having to deny being elitists who’ve abandoned the working class, to defend the party’s historic defeats they announce millions of taxpayer money being given to a literal bank.
Democratic politicians: Governor Josh Shapiro, PA State Rep Bridget Kosierowski, PA State Rep Kyle Donahue, PA State Senator Marty Flynn, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Lackawanna County Commissioner Matt McGloin and Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan were all at this… celebration. Showing no sense of any self-awareness at all.
FOX 56 WOLF - Fidelity Bank to expand HQ, revitalize downtown Scranton with $25M project by Elizabeth Haikes - Thu, November 14th 2024 In a step toward bolstering Pennsylvania’s economic growth, Governor Josh Shapiro announced a $5 million investment to support Fidelity Bank’s headquarters expansion in downtown Scranton. This expansion would bring over 150 more jobs to the area.
I’m not against the restoration of the historic landmark building per se. I’m appalled that taxpayer money is being given to a literal bank. Literally they are giving millions of dollars to a bank. This while we’re told there’s no money for other things. “How ya gonna pay for that?” That’s what us people are always told.
If this rich bank wants to be part of our community, and if the bank is so good for our community — why aren’t they spending their own money to restore their building? They have the money, it’s a bank! If they can’t afford it, and can’t afford to fix it without handouts, it doesn’t sound like a viable business. But of course it is, it’s a bank. Why do we the people always have to bail out banks? Even when they don’t even need it?
It would be different if the city, the county, or the state, owned this building, and was going to pay to restore it for the look of the city and posterity, and then rent it to the bank and recoup the money invested by the taxpayers. It might even make sense if even some private historic society actually owned this building, and in exchange for the taxpayer investment was going to have some strings attached to make sure it benefited the community and preserved history or whatever.
But that’s not what's going on here.
The bank literally owns this building. They are just being given our money, to do their own construction work on property wholly owned by a bank.
If we had participatory budgeting here, this would never happen. I guarantee you nobody regardless of their political leaning would vote for giving taxpayer money to a bank. Only people with privilege and power make these decisions for mysterious reasons we can only speculate make sense for them.
This is “trickle down economics” being pushed by Democrats.
And as for that old “bringing the jobs” slipped in the PR piece — I mean the news article…. Well, the local scuttlebutt is that some jobs allegedly may involve some back scratching. And generally I don’t trust politicians who say they’re “bringing the jobs” with good reason, and I’m not alone in not being distracted by promises of jobs - I explained this in response to a frustrated liberal film historian’s cluelessness last Christmas. (The relevance of that Christmas movie is almost too on the nose.)
Every time I turn around, locally here in Pennsylvania, I hear about money being given to already rich businesses, including tycoons who want to literally burn tires for their crypto casino schemes. And year after year we’re told there’s no money to give people healthcare, vaccines, or other things that benefit actual humans directly.
Meanwhile the area was turned down for federal FEMA money after that terrible flood in September 2023 that killed people. And now that’s used as the reason everybody’s homeowners insurance went up significantly for us near the flooding — even though regular homeowners insurance doesn’t even cover floods!
And after the water company polluted local streams and rivers, they were allowed to NOT pay any fines or restitution, “Instead, the utility company will put money back in the community.” So instead of paying restitution, and being under some kind of scrutiny, and the people allocating the funds to put things right and watch what they’re doing, we have to trust the perpetrators of the incident to “invest” their “$300,000 to create fish habitats along Roaring Brook and stabilize the stream bank” and that’s that. Privatized water in Pennsylvania has really been something else.
My earliest memories of learning about politics involved my father using the word “kickbacks” angrily with disgust at local “business leaders” and politicians.
File under: Answers to the question: What’s going on in Pennsylvania?
Other things I’ve published about that involve Pennsylvania:
https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/pennsylvania