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Dear Neighbor,

Welcome to July – it’s extremely hot and patriotic outside! Take a minute to read over these safety considerations for your home and family in extreme heat, as we head into a special Independence Day weekend.

First, in state budget news – while I hoped to have a finalized budget to share with you this week – the reality is that Pennsylvania’s budget is now officially two days late, going on several more at least.

Let me be clear. The House, in which I serve on the Appropriations Committee, passed a comprehensive state budget in April. It’s now up to the Senate to act. We cannot do anything if they’re not in session. You can track the budget process progress here.

A public budget is a covenant between a government and its people – and ours explicitly directs funding for the programs and services that back up those promises here in the commonwealth. It prioritizes and maintains core needs for our communities such as school funding, healthcare access, transportation infrastructure including for mass transit, housing, property tax relief, and farmland preservation, as well as services from public partners such as Feeding Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Area Agencies on Aging, and so many more important groups.

When our agencies and partners don’t receive the funding that they’re promised – or when Harrisburg becomes so politically complicated that they cannot predict their operating budgets – they run into additional expense, carrying debt to cover the impasse period. The General Assembly cannot let this happen this year, let alone for a fifth year in a row.

But the House cannot do it alone – the Senate must come back to budget negotiations and fulfill its duty to Pennsylvanians.

Happy 250th Birthday to the U.S.A.

This weekend, America turns 250. While we’re out watching fireworks, swimming and playing responsibly this Saturday, the experiment that began with a declaration and an unlikely revolution against a tyrannical world power will reflect on 250 years of its life and history.

The U.S.A. was born in Pennsylvania and Independence Hall on July 4, it was fought for at Valley Forge, the tide turned in the Civil War here, and when it needed power, steel, rations – and heroes – for world wars and industrial revolutions, the U.S.A. came to Pennsylvania again and again.

Today, we boast the world’s 26th largest economy and 13 million residents – including some 90,000 farmers who drive the nation’s agricultural industry on the same ground as our founding farmers – and we count some of the world’s leading corporations and companies in Pennsylvania’s cities and towns.

All of this makes me proud and humbled to be an elected representative in Pennsylvania, especially this year. On a personal note, it never ceases to amaze me that I serve in the same body that Benjamin Franklin served in before the Second Continental Congress. He was even Clerk of the General Assembly. He would also famously represent Pennsylvania at the United States’ Constitutional Convention in 1787.

America250PA is full of those stories. I encourage you to check it out and make a trip to see history in person!

Here today in Chester County, you might also remember that thanks to America250PA funding, we’ve been building and programming projects all over Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, I was proud to announce an America250PA Keystone Historic Preservation Grant for nearly $100K in East Coventry Township.

I say it’s a profound year to turn 250, because we clearly have work to do if we want to make it another 250 years. And far be it from me to sum up two and a half centuries, I’ll instead recall a famous exchange made by Franklin back at the beginning.

When asked by Philadelphia’s Elizabeth Willing Powel, a founding mother herself, whether we have a republic or monarchy, do you remember what Franklin said?

At 81 years old and 11 years after signing the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin replied to the question – during our Constitutional Convention in Independence Hall once again – "A republic, if you can keep it."

Proudly keeping it in Pennsylvania,