Join Fight for Philly, Decarcerate PA, and many others TONIGHT, Wednesday, September 19 to tell Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett to stop funneling money to private prisons and to fully fund public education and General Assistance. Recently Corbett completely eliminated the state’s GA program, which provided small monthly stipends to help people with disabilities, women fleeing abusers, and people in intensive drug or alcohol treatment pay for shelter, medical co-pays, and transportation. Now some of the state’s neediest people need to make do with even less. Corbett and the Republican-controlled state legislature have also made millions of dollars in deep cuts to higher education as well as primary schools in the state, leaving cities like Philadelphia scrambling to fund schools and making it even harder for working families to send their children to college. At the same time, Corbett has refused to raise taxes and has continued to fund a $685 million prison-expansion plan. Corbett won’t end tax loopholes, won’t end special breaks for corporations, won’t tax fracking, and won’t pursue a more fair tax structure in this state. He has even proposed up to $1.7 BILLION in tax subsidies for Shell Oil.
“Why is Corbett eliminating school funding and low-cost programs that really help many of the truly needy? Instead of cutting services and education, he should end special interest tax breaks and close tax loopholes,” says Eric Alick, West Philly Fight for Philly community member.
“Many people living with HIV depend on GA for co-payments and for rent if they are in a drug recovery
program,” said ACT UP Philly member Leon Tyer. “By ending GA, Governor Corbett has put the nail
in the coffin for them, and by building more prisons rather than focusing on education, he is condemning
them into even more vulnerable positions. For me, it is very personal because I nearly died in prison
because of a lack of medical care. I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”
Please join us in telling the governor how you feel. Fund schools and GA, not prisons!
RSVP on Facebook:
