Breathe easy. The state constitution’s Environmental Rights Amendment is not a gratuitous statement. Rather, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has found, the amendment is an invaluable and enforceable provision that empowers the state government to protect all Pennsylvanians’ right to clean ...

State Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, is right. Our state government spends too much money. And, for all that money spent, its agencies are still too frequently unresponsive to the needs of constituents. Hamm convincingly supported these arguments with hard numbers. The state Secretary ...

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has done something that seems like a throwback to a quaint time we can barely remember. It did its job. More than that, after coming back into session following a lengthy break, the lawmakers got down to the business of making laws and not just ...

Five Democratic legislators have proposed changing the state income tax to make it less regressive, but it has scant chance of passage in the divided Legislature. Still, the proposal demonstrates how the state’s flat-rate income tax adversely affects lower-income taxpayers. Pennsylvania ...

Forty years ago, when the New York state Thruway was in its third decade of use, there was a belief among motorists that paying a toll to drive on Interstate 90 was temporary. At that time, U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan hailed an agreement by representatives of the Federal Highway Trust and ...

Back in 1966, the Beatles asked in “Eleanor Rigby” where all the lonely people came from and where they all belong. Fifty-seven years later, the question remains just as pertinent and, in the estimation of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, even more urgent. According to a report ...