Patti Murphy, seen on Feb. 11, 2020, has worked at Hanover Shoe Farms for 20 years.
Ed Mahon / PA Post
Patti Murphy, seen on Feb. 11, 2020, has worked at Hanover Shoe Farms for 20 years.
Ed Mahon / PA Post
I never really understood why Pennsylvania’s roughly $200 million horse racing subsidy was so hard to get rid of until I met Patti Murphy and Kyle Arentz.
I knew that Pennsylvania sends a lot of money to the owners and farms involved in horse racing. A USA TODAY Network investigation published last year found that the state leads the “nation in race horse subsidies ($240 million per year) and total horse deaths (556) from 2014 through 2018.”
I knew the money comes from a tax on slot machines. And thanks to this Tribune-Review story from 2015 , I knew that many people who live out of state benefit from the subsidy. The list of racehorse owners getting subsidies included the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, a Saudi prince and the president of a Canadian food company.
I knew the conservative Commonwealth Foundation considered the money a “symbol of government waste.”
All those factors make it seem like the $200 million would be a pretty easy target for lawmakers, particularly in tight budget times. But workers like Murphy and Arentz aren’t easy targets.
Murphy, 55, has worked with horses most of her life and is now the manager at Hanover Shoe Farms, which covers about 3,000 acres in York and Adams counties. Arentz, 27, works for his family’s business, which sells hay and straw to Hanover Shoe Farms.
Both said they worry that if the state cuts $200 million from race horse funding, those cuts will quickly flow down and hurt them.
Despite sharing the same fear, they had a different view about the governor’s call for college scholarships.
“I’m all for scholarships and educational benefits for everyone,” Murphy said. “But I think the money can come from other places.”
Arentz, on the other hand, sees the college scholarship idea as one more unnecessary handout.
Lawmakers brought up the job concerns during a House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee meeting Wednesday.
“I hear a lot about, you know, the Saudi sheikhs and the billionaires, and they’re taking advantage of all this money and everything,” said state Representative John Lawrence, a Republican representing parts of Chester and Lancaster counties. “In my experience, and what I’ve seen in my own district — this money is going to family farmers, selling hay bales off their own farm, to try to keep the operation in business.”
That’s why the issue is likely to be a tough fight for Wolf. But he’s still campaigning for it. On Wednesday, Wolf made his case at high school in Bucks County. And he said he plans to visit all 14-state-owned universities ahead of the June budget deadline. — Ed Mahon
A teenage immigrant’s choice: WHYY’s Laura Benshoff has a deeply reported story, looking at the challenges 15-year-old Fredy Garcia Morales faces. He came to the United States from Guatemala in 2018 and is struggling at his school in rural, and mostly white, Franklin County. Whether he’ll make it to graduation or quit to work somewhere is a big question. The story also includes some fantastic photos of Freddy’s family and the community.
Prepping for the coronavirus: So far, no one in Pennsylvania has tested positive for the respiratory virus, which is marked by fever, cough and shortness of breath, WITF’s Brett Sholits reports. But the Wolf administration is planning for the possibility. Worldwide, the coronavirus has infected more than 81,000 people and killed more than 2,700, ABC News reports.
Not easy to hack: After receiving a question from a reader, The Morning Call looks at the security of voting machines in Pennsylvania. “Individual voting machines aren’t really ideal targets for hackers,” writes Tom Shortell. “Since Pennsylvania voting machines cannot have internet access, hackers would have to directly hardwire dozens of machines without being noticed to swing a countywide election.”
Another red flag law: New Mexico became the 18th state to pass an extreme risk protection order law, which allows courts to temporarily remove someone’s gun rights if a judge determines they are a risk to themselves or others. In Pennsylvania, efforts to pass a similar law have stalled, and the group Everytown for Gun Safety earlier this month announced a $250,000 digital campaign to increase pressure on lawmakers here to pass such a law and also expand background checks on gun sales.
Location objections: The nation’s first supervised injection facility is poised to open in South Philadelphia next week, as noted in Wednesday’s Context. WHYY’s Michaela Winberg describes the legal fight over the issue and the shouting match that occurred at a Wednesday news conference.
Voter games: Pennsylvania hasn’t been the focus of the types of voter registration purges we’ve seen in places like Georgia and Wisconsin in recent years. But that could be changing. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a GOP-aligned law firm is suing Allegheny County, alleging the county is not properly maintaining its voter rolls. The suit alleges the rolls contain “more than 3,700 sets of duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate voter registration records; more than 1,500 deceased voters whose registrations should have been canceled, but remain active; more than 1,500 registrants with dates-of-birth listed more than 100 years ago; and more than 7,400 records that contain erroneous information stemming from the county’s failure to correctly process name changes.”
Something I’ve never heard of: Nicole Ford of Pittsburgh’s KDKA has details on “Ash and Dash” events for people who didn’t have time to make it to full a church service yesterday at the start of the Lenten season. This wasn’t an option back when I was a student at St. Francis of Assisi grade school in Springfield Township, Delaware County.