While this year's state budget included important investments that will improve the lives of Pennsylvanians across the Commonwealth, it also left several significant priorities on the table. This week, I want to highlight some of the opportunities that were missed during budget negotiations, issues that could have made a meaningful difference for working families, taxpayers, small businesses, and communities throughout Pennsylvania.
House Bill 1250
I first want to address the Senate’s continued failure to act on my bill, House Bill 1250.
The lack of action on this legislation is another example of our Commonwealth failing to address the growing housing crisis and protect some of our most vulnerable residents. Manufactured housing communities are home to seniors, veterans, working families, and countless Pennsylvanians who deserve stability and security in the place they call home.
As my colleague Sen. Nikil Saval stated, “Nearly one in three Pennsylvania households is cost burdened, and our Commonwealth has a deficit of nearly 100,000 homes.” At a time when families are already struggling with rising costs, we should be doing more to protect affordable housing options, not allowing residents to live in fear of unpredictable rent increases and losing their homes.
I am particularly disappointed that the Senate Urban Affairs and Housing Committee chose not to advance this legislation or stand up for the residents who need it most. Instead, corporate landlords and private equity firms continue to treat manufactured housing communities as profit centers rather than neighborhoods filled with people and families.
Residents should not have to wonder whether the next rent increase will force them out of the homes they have worked so hard to maintain.
If you or a loved one lives in a manufactured housing community and would like to urge the Senate to bring House Bill 1250 up for a vote before the end of this legislative session, please visit HERE to contact your Senator.
Public Transit
Many Pennsylvanians will remember last year’s budget impasse, which centered around the urgent need for sustainable public transit funding. Unfortunately, we still have not reached a long-term solution.
Despite the House passing five separate transit funding proposals which we sent to the Senate in 2025, the Senate continues to refuse to move those bills and did not include meaningful public transportation support in this year’s budget.
House Bill 1788 remains a bipartisan path forward. Passed last year, the legislation incorporated key Republican transportation priorities while addressing Pennsylvania’s growing transit and infrastructure challenges without raising taxes. It would have increased the share of sales tax revenue dedicated to the Public Transportation Trust Fund, generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually for transit systems across the Commonwealth, while also supporting critical road and bridge investments.
By failing to act, the Senate left communities across Pennsylvania without the resources needed to maintain reliable transit service, support workers who rely on public transportation, and strengthen our transportation network.
Combined Reporting
Another missed opportunity was implementing combined reporting to create a fairer corporate tax system that better supports small businesses and Pennsylvania families.
Pennsylvania’s current corporate tax structure allows large, multi-state corporations to shift income among out of state subsidiaries, reducing the amount of taxes they pay here in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, small businesses and individual taxpayers often shoulder a larger share of the burden.
According to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, 73% of companies doing business in the commonwealth subject to Pennsylvania’s corporate net income tax pay no tax.
House Bill 1610, which I co-sponsored, would address this imbalance by requiring multi-state corporations to file a combined report and pay taxes based on the portion of their income connected to Pennsylvania. This would ensure that corporations doing business in our Commonwealth pay their fair share while protecting small businesses from an unfair tax disadvantage.
Combined reporting provides a more accurate measure of corporate income, broadens the tax base, and reduces opportunities for manipulation. It is a fair and responsible approach that ensures everyone contributes appropriately.
Unfortunately, more than a year after passing the House, HB 1610 remains stalled in the Senate Finance Committee. If you believe corporate tax fairness and supporting Pennsylvania’s small businesses are priorities, I encourage you to contact Senate Finance Committee leadership and ask them to move this legislation forward.
Healthcare Affordability:
The rising cost of healthcare continues to impact families throughout Pennsylvania. Too many residents are struggling with medical debt, rising premiums, and the impossible choice between paying healthcare bills and paying for everyday necessities.
While this year's budget included important investments in areas like rural hospitals and services supporting Pennsylvanians with disabilities, we missed opportunities to make healthcare more affordable, accessible, and accountable.
House Bill 79, the Hospital-Based Financial Assistance Act, would require hospitals to provide clear, accessible information about financial assistance programs and ensure patients understand what help is available. At a time when federal healthcare assistance is being reduced and thousands of Pennsylvanians are losing health coverage, ensuring patients can access available financial assistance has never been more important. This year, over 177,000 people have dropped Pennie because of these funding cuts.
We also failed to address one of the greatest threats facing healthcare in Pennsylvania: the rapid consolidation and closure of hospitals.
Across the Commonwealth, hospital closures are creating healthcare deserts, forcing patients to travel farther for emergency care, maternity services, trauma care, and other essential healthcare. These closures don't just affect the communities where hospitals shut their doors, they overwhelm neighboring health systems, increase emergency room wait times, lengthen ambulance transport times, and reduce access to timely care throughout an entire region.
Here in southeastern Pennsylvania, we've seen the consequences firsthand. The closures of Delaware County Memorial Hospital, Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Jennersville Hospital, and Brandywine Hospital have left entire communities without nearby emergency services. Hospitals such as Lankenau Medical Center, Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, and Bryn Mawr Hospital have absorbed thousands of additional patients, straining staff and increasing wait times for everyone.
Too often, these closures are preceded by hospital mergers, acquisitions, or private equity ownership that prioritize short-term profits over patient care. When financial decisions lead to the elimination of services, the closure of hospital units, or the loss of entire hospitals, all of us are at risk.
Pennsylvania currently relies on the Attorney General's Office to protect healthcare consumers during hospital mergers and acquisitions, but state law does not provide the office with sufficient authority to prevent harmful transactions before patients are affected.
That is why I support legislation that would strengthen the Attorney General's oversight of hospital, nursing home, and hospice mergers, acquisitions, and sales. House Bill 1460, which I co-sponsored, would require greater review of transactions that may not be in the best public interest, increase transparency and community input, and provide stronger safeguards against predatory private equity practices that put profits ahead of patients.
Healthcare should never be treated as just another investment opportunity. Every Pennsylvanian deserves access to quality, affordable care close to home. As hospitals continue to consolidate and healthcare deserts expand, we cannot afford to wait until another community loses its local hospital before acting.
Taxing Digital Ads:
We missed an opportunity to create a new revenue stream by taxing digital advertising.
Every day, companies collect personal data and use it to target advertisements based on our interests and online activity. These large corporations face no comparable tax on this business model.
House Bill 1678 would have generated millions of dollars annually by requiring large corporations that profit from digital advertising to contribute back to the Commonwealth. Maryland was the first state to act against mega-companies and digital advertising. In just a few years, they raised $170 million in taxes and used it to fund public education throughout the state.
As our state continues to identify sustainable sources of revenue, we should ensure that the largest corporations are contributing fairly.
AI Protections
Pennsylvania is in the middle of a data center gold rush, and I was disappointed that this year's budget failed to include the meaningful guardrails House Democrats fought for.
The only significant change requires large data centers using more than 10 megawatts of electricity to disclose their energy and water use. Transparency is important, but reporting alone will not prevent higher electric bills, protect our natural resources, or give communities a real voice in development decisions.
We failed to repeal a data center sales tax exemption projected to cost taxpayers $2 billion by 2031. I previously supported efforts to give municipalities more authority over data center development, ensure developers pay for the infrastructure they require instead of shifting costs onto utility customers, and put taxpayers and local communities ahead of corporate interests.
We need more action on this issue. The House passed numerous pieces of legislation to protect our communities from unregulated data center development, but the Senate refuses to act on them. Since polling now shows that almost two thirds of Pennsylvanians are concerned about unregulated development, we are finally seeing some movement in the senate but it’s not something we managed to make substantial strides on in the budget. I will continue fighting for policies that protect taxpayers, ratepayers, our environment, and the ability of local communities to shape their own future.
Skill Games
A significant issue left unresolved in this year's budget is the regulation of skill games, and their potential as a revenue source.
For years, an estimated 70,000 skill game machines have operated in a legal gray area across Pennsylvania. That changed when, in June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that these machines are slot machines under state law and therefore subject to Pennsylvania's gambling statutes. The Court delayed enforcement of its decision for 120 days, giving the General Assembly one final opportunity to establish a regulatory framework before the machines become subject to seizure by law enforcement.
This decision makes legislative action more urgent than ever.
According to the Independent Fiscal Office, regulating and taxing skill games could generate more than $1 billion annually for the Commonwealth while providing certainty for the small businesses, veterans' organizations, and fraternal clubs that rely on this revenue.
The debate is no longer whether the issue should be addressed, but how. We need a balanced approach that protects consumers, provides clear rules for operators, and ensures these machines contribute fairly to the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, despite years of discussion and another budget cycle, we missed the opportunity to resolve this issue.
Minimum Wage
Finally, this budget marked 20 years since Pennsylvania last increased its minimum wage.
For two decades, Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has remained at $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage, despite the rising cost of housing, food, healthcare, and everyday necessities.
In March, the House passed House Bill 2189, which would raise Pennsylvania’s minimum. Unfortunately, the legislation stalled in the Senate with the other three minimum wage increases the House has passed in the past four years, without any movement, or counterproposal by the Senate on how to address this critical issue.
Today, 43,000 Pennsylvanians continue earning wages that make it difficult to make ends meet and often must rely on state benefits to survive. We are all therefore in the position of subsidizing companies paying poverty wages. Every neighboring state, including West Virginia, has taken action to support working families. The nearest states to us that also have the federal minimum are North Carolina, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. Pennsylvania families cannot afford continued inaction by the Senate on this issue.
Even a compromise increase would make a meaningful difference for workers across our Commonwealth but the Senate has failed to come up with a counterproposal.
Moving Forward
While this budget included important investments, we cannot ignore the many issues that remain unresolved. Beyond the priorities I've highlighted here, dozens of other House-passed bills that would protect workers, strengthen consumer protections, expand affordable housing, improve healthcare, safeguard our communities, and make government work better for Pennsylvanians continue to await action in the Senate. You can learn more about many of those proposals here.
The House has shown that we can move forward on practical, bipartisan solutions that make life more affordable, protect consumers, support working families, and strengthen our economy. It's time for the Senate to do the same.
I remain committed to fighting for policies that lower costs, protect our communities, expand opportunities, and ensure Pennsylvania remains a place where families, workers, seniors, and small businesses can thrive. I hope Senate leadership will recognize that these aren't partisan priorities, they're Pennsylvania priorities, and our constituents need and deserve us to take action on them!