Tom Corbett talks out his ass, blames Obama for not sending him more stimulus money

Tom Corbett made a grand huzzah at a dinner held by the Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce & Industry, and you knew these industry titans would gobble up every word faster than the rubber chicken.

"You want jobs!"

"FRACKING!"

"You want more teachers!"

"Pay $900 a year more in taxes, suckers."

The budget crisis, like everything else, is all President Obama's fault.

The governor said so:

We received money from Washington. It was called stimulus money. That money was put into the budget. It was put into education. The money disappeared. The federal government said it was one-time money, and for the first time when they said it was one-time money they meant it.

After happily bullshitting the audience of 700, Corbett avoided the crowd outside the Sovereign Performing Arts Center protesting cuts in education funding by using a rear entrance, and then galloping straight to a private reception to meet with the people who really matter.

Common is booked solid, so Tom Corbett will address Albright grads

The governor is coming to town, and he will tell Albright seniors how lucky they are to complete their education, more or less, before he was elected governor. How do you plan to protest? Place a textbook on your lap? Make a clever sign that police will not allow you to hoist? Wave a plastic replica of a human spine? This is serious business.

Governor gathers factory workers for pep talk on how swell he is

Holy Mudhead, Mackerel! Doesn't this resemble a scene out of Stalinist Russia, where the party sends an apparatchnik to whip up the proles with a hortatory speech about how their hard-sweating labor contributes to the common good.

Why, no, it's Tom Corbett holding forth at Summit Steel & Manufacturing Inc. in Muhlenberg Township, telling a captive audience that the metal tubing, bars and rods they make help CREATE JOBS and allow companies like GE to get away with paying no taxes at all. Lunch break over, get back to work.

Poor students get the double shaft under Corbett spending plan

It's not just local school districts, big universities and state colleges that will take a hit if Tom Corbett is allowed to take a whack at education funding.

Community colleges will feel the hurt, too, and -- guess what -- the brunt of the pain will fall on the poorest, most disadvantaged students. At Reading Area Community College (disclaimer: I teach there), not only would direct funding be sliced, but the state also would chop funds that go toward the dual enrollment program, which allows high school students to get a jump start on higher education by taking college courses as part of their school day, evenings or during the summer.

From the morning paper:

In Berks, students from 14 secondary schools - mostly public high schools - take dual enrollment courses through RACC.

Reading sends the most, with 187 students taking those courses this year.

The Reading students often come from struggling families and need to start earning money as soon as possible, said Waldo Alvarado, assistant principal for the Citadel intermediate high school.

Therefore, he said, some students find college too costly and time consuming to attend.

Dual enrollment courses allow them to earn college credits before graduating from high school, reducing their time in college and their costs, he said.

But without help from the state, he said, many of those students will forgo college and some will likely drop out of high school.

That's the Corbett plan, for you. Make sure the poor stay poor and uneducated so they pose no threat to upsetting the GOP's political apple cart that rewards wealth and privilege.