PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/category/money-and-politics/)
The PPP money went disproportionately to the small businesses with the biggest payrolls. The top 1% of businesses receiving PPP loans yielded more than $400 million, more than the bottom 80% of businesses combined.
Marginalized and underrepresented communities across America will remember four years of the Trump presidency as ones of hopelessness and despair.
The November general election is being built up to be one of the most tense, consequential and unusual elections to take place in U.S. history. An incumbent president with historically low approval ratings is saying he wouldn’t commit to election results if he loses, all while a pandemic killing thousands of Americans per week has forced the country to shift toward mail-in voting.
Banning chokeholds, prohibiting the acquisition of military equipment and implementing a hiring freeze are some of the recent steps Pittsburgh city council has taken to reform the city’s police. But do council members think they’re enough? And what more can they do?
How much power do mayors actually have over police reform?
The aid package UPMC received was one of the largest of any business or nonprofit, in any industry. Across the country, 25 healthcare providers received more direct grant funding, and about half of those were in New York and New Jersey, which were the hardest hit by COVID-19 early on, and some of which were eligible for additional funding.
As the Pittsburgh City Council is nearing a vote on whether to start collecting a parks tax that voters approved by referendum last year, City Controller Michael Lamb said the city has no choice but to start collecting the tax. "At this point, I think council has got to move forward with this and I think they are legally required to move forward with this," Lamb said. "I don't think there is too much wiggle room in getting out of it given the wording of the referendum." PublicSource reported last month that at least two city councilors preferred not to collect the tax at all. But Lamb said at a press conference Thursday that his understanding is that the council will vote to start collecting the tax in 2021.
Pennsylvania spent $5.9 billion on salaries for 115,169 employees across 61 state agencies last year, roughly the same expense as 2018.
The amount spent on salaries in 2019 represents 17.1% of the $34.5 billion in tax revenue collected last year, about the same percentage of revenue in 2018.
I see a need for individuals 25 and younger to have a say on the decisions that impact them most. Just as experiences vary from person to person, decisions that impact young people should not be made by anyone other than ourselves. We have relevant experience because we are young people.
The political context of the parks tax has changed considerably since March. The original debate over the tax centered around what it meant to spend the money equitably. Since then, Black Lives Matter protests across Pittsburgh have put the issue of equity front-and-center, drawing attention — and often support — from council.
