As budget ax falls on human services, Corbett hands out corporate welfare (Pburgh Citypaper)

http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/pittsburgh/wealth-and-welfare-as-budget-ax-prepares-to-fall-on-social-services-big-business-gets-a-hand-up/Content?oid=1533428

Excerpts:

"We lost 14,000 education jobs in this state last year," Ward says. "But this governor insists that the private sector is the only way to create jobs so he's putting all of his focus into that."

The Shell tax credit is just one of several breaks given to big business by the Corbett administration. In January, the state continued a phase-out of the capital stock and foreign franchise tax — a levy on the net worth of any company doing business in Pennsylvania — which cost $247.2 million this year. The rate will drop again in 2013 before being eliminated completely in 2014.

Corbett also adopted a federal policy that allows corporations to completely write off any new equipment purchases made in 2011 and late 2010. Ward's group and state auditors alike estimate that the so-called "bonus depreciation" could cost the state $350 million.

And that's not even counting the fiscal damage done by actions state officials could have taken, but didn't. "