Pennsylvania October Political Updates

There were positive developments recently on two matters I had posted on previously.

The Pennsylvania Senate has passed the Castle Doctrine law, but the version the upper body of the General Assembly approved differs from the one passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month, which I had posted about at the time.

Pennsylvania’s tax-and-spend Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, has acquiesced to Republican and industry opposition to his proposed tax on the natural gas industry which is developing the Keystone State’s huge Marcellus Shale natural gas reserve. The natural gas industry is a boon for Pennsylvania’s economy, which helps generate taxable income. The proposed severance tax on the natural gas industry would have been in addition to the relatively high corporate taxes every corporation large and small already faces in the Commonwealth. Thus, the abandonment of the proposed severance tax prevents Pennsylvania from killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I had posted on this issue in May in my post, Analysis of the Pennsylvania Primary Elections.