😀 Monday. Monday.
🗞️ In today’s PoliticsPA Guide. Trump plans to visit the Mount Airy casino resort. Shapiro’s 2028 White House strategy begins in 2026. Billions in rural health care funding depend on states adopting Trump-backed policies. The end of paid hours?
🎶 Your morning pick-me-up. I love Rock’n’Roll. Joan Jett and Blackheart
Weather in Pennsylvania
🌥️Brockway | Partly radiant, 24
☁️Enola | Mostly dull, 28
🌥️ Darby | Rising clouds, 32
Sports PA
🏈 Eagles (8-4) | Mon. in the LA Chargers
🏈 Steelers (7-6) | Baltimore 27-22 | December 15 vs. Miami
🏀 Sixes (13-10) | Milwaukee 116-101 | Los Angeles Lakers 108-112 | Friday vs. Indiana
🏒 Flyers (15-9-3) | Colorado 2-3 | Tuesday vs. San Jose
🏒 Penguins (14-7-6) | Dallas 2-3 (YES) | Tuesday vs. Anaheim
🏈 Pitt (8-4) | December 27 vs. East Carolina
🏈 Penn State (6-6) | December 27 vs. Clemson
📅 What’s happening today. Chamber (no vote), 12:00 | Senate, 3:00. The annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the Capitol takes place at 2 p.m
🎙️Voices of reason. Chairman of House Appropriations Representative Jordan Harris and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee His. Scott Martin join the host Steve Ulrich For an truthful, bipartisan look at Pennsylvania’s budget battles. Together, they explore the state’s fiscal outlook, the pressures shaping this year’s negotiations and why passing a budget has become more challenging than ever.
🥂 Society of Pennsylvania. The calendar of events for December 11-13 can be found here.
📰 PoliticsPA Guide was developed by Steve Ulrich. To read in your browser click here. Has this email been forwarded to you? Subscribe for free.
The most vital story
1. Trump visited Mount Airy Casino Resort in Monroe County to talk about the economy and inflation
“In decades past, generations of New Yorkers were drawn to the Poconos by the famous advertising jingle, “beautiful Mount Airy Lodge.”
President Donald Trump intends to follow in their footsteps.
The cottage is now a casino — and Trump is currently spending more time in Washington and Florida than in his native New York — but the president will visit the Monroe County landmark on Tuesday to kick off what the Axios report called “a year of intense U.S. travel aimed at selling his economic agenda ahead of the midterms.” WVIA
Elsewhere
“Doing nothing is not an option,” Fitzpatrick says on the GOP affordability agenda. “Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick charts a lane where he clashes with GOP leaders.” | PoliticsPA
Swing County Republicans are preparing for political fallout if health care subsidies expire. “For a critical segment of the Republican majority, the impending expiration of so-called enhanced premium tax credits after December 31 is an urgent concern as they potentially face headwinds in the 2026 midterm elections that will be central to President Donald Trump’s agenda. One of them is first-term Republican Ryan Mackenzie, whose Allentown-area victory last year was one of the narrowest in the country.” | AP
GOP can’t agree on health care plan. Some Republicans are panicking. “Republicans have yet to unite around a health care strategy in the days before an expected vote on extending increased Obamacare subsidies, prompting concerns among some GOP lawmakers about voter backlash.” | Wall Street Journal
McCormick reflects on his first year in office. “In an interview, U.S. Senator Dave McCormick listed his achievements from his first year in office, including the “Big Five”: the Nippon-US Steel deal, a $20 billion investment in Amazon data centers, an energy summit that brought $92 billion in investments to the Commonwealth, and a $5 billion deal that brought Korean company Hanwha to the Philadelphia shipyards. | RealClearPennsylvania
Country
2. Shapiro’s 2028 White House Strategy Starts in 2026
“Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro he has a plan that could give him an advantage in the 2028 presidential primary: engineer a blowout for Democrats in his state in next year’s midterms to prove he can turn the largest Electoral College battleground blue again.
Why it matters: In recent months, Shapiro has been quietly and methodically tightening his grip on the Democratic machine in Pennsylvania – recruiting key congressional candidates, clearing the field for them and transforming the state party.
These moves, according to insiders, are aimed at maximizing Democratic victories while simultaneously positioning Shapiro as the most electable presidential candidate.” | Axles
Elsewhere
Josh Shapiro and the politics of faith. “The 2028 presidential race is still well over a year from beginning in earnest. But if there’s any indication that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, long considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, is seriously considering running, it’s the fact that the moderate swing state governor recently gave interviews to two major magazines – The Atlantic and The New Yorker – both published last week.” | Jewish insider
When the feds block PA funding, should the state respond? Democrats say yes.. “Pennsylvania lawmakers are pushing for the ability to capture federal payments in response to presidential administrations withholding or withholding funding for the commonwealth.” | Erie Times-News
Artificial intelligence poised to play a bigger role in PA elections in 2026 and beyond. “There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is the future of campaigning,” said Vince Galko, a GOP strategist from northeastern Pennsylvania. “Just like social media was the future 20 years ago. With artificial intelligence, you don’t use it at your own risk.”” | Pittsburgh Postal Newspaper
PA election directors call for reforms to third-party registration drives. “It is not fraud but incompetence that is hampering the delivery of a basic voting service,” officials say. | WITF
Around the Republic of Poland
3. ‘Something like blackmail’: Billions in rural health care funding depend on states adopting Trump-backed policies
“The Trump administration has offered states a deal: committing to policies favored by the White House for a chance to win more of the $50 billion earmarked to transform the nation’s struggling rural health care systems. The battle for those funds is ongoing.” | POLICY
Elsewhere
Oz, Bresnahan and McCormick discuss ACA tax credits, Rural Health Transformation Fund in separate NEPA visits. “U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan said Friday he supports extending the enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, which expire at the end of this year.” | WVIA
As Dan Miller prepares to serve on the Court of Common Pleas, he is not quite ready in Harrisburg. “In a recent interview, the Pittsburgh-area Democrat said he prefers not to look back on his legislative career, which began in 2013. “I’m still looking forward to it,” he said. But he acknowledged that the Legislature has changed since he took office, and not entirely for the better. | WESA
GOP lawmakers are nervous about college football and money. “The booming business of college sports is getting out of control, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle disagree, but whether Congress should intervene and how to effectively level the playing field between top universities and smaller schools is a hot debate on Capitol Hill.” | Hill
Editorial
4. What do you think about it?
1 item
5. End of paid hours?
“Will the paid hour become a thing of the past?
This seems inevitable, at least for lawyers and other professional services firms, because as AI capabilities accelerate, the basic logic of charging for time spent rather than value delivered becomes increasingly unsustainable.
The billable hour as a basic business unit in professional services is so common that it is hard to remember that it is a relatively modern innovation, widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. Previously, many lawyers and other specialists billed for results achieved or services provided, not for time Wall Street Journal
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LFG. See you tomorrow.
