Join the colorization. Like us on cspan. Follow us on twitter. Pennsylvania as well as our audience. This is the final debate in the race for governor. Welcome to our candidates. Our panelists tonight include the president of the league of women voters of pennsylvania. Each candidate will give a one minute closing statement. Our order was predetermined and eight coin in a coin flip. Is working with the league of voters to bring this debate. Thank you and good evening. On behalf of the league of women voters i extend a sincere welcome. For participating in this exchange of positions and visions. Forms and debates are Great American traditions. Governors matter, our states future matters. And voters matter. Pennsylvanians need to know who and what. Who and what they are voting for. Pennsylvania has a pay equity law that has been on the books for approximately 55 years. That law is not working. Earnsn in pennsylvania . 77 for every one dollar a man earns and every earlier this year more comprehensive legislation addressing the gap failed to pass. Umber ofgnificant n women continue to be shortchanged. Lex i will do my best to make sure does like that pass. Equity law and we need to do a much better job ensuring that women are paid at the same level as men for the same work. In my company i worked hard to make sure that was the case and i think we need to do that and the state. We need to make sure pennsylvania has a level Playing Field so that women feel they have my two daughters feel they can invest their talents and skills in a place like pennsylvania and be amply rewarded. We have found something we agree upon. We do need to have that. We have seen the workforce grow with women across the spectrum. There needs to be pay equity and i supported that bill. We need to work the legislature to get that done but i have already begun that within my administration within the senior staff. I have more women on the senior staff than any governor in the history of pennsylvania. My senior staff is led by the chief of staff. Eight members of my cabinet are women so i believe in women being involved in the workforce and i am reminding my daughter who is a Deputy Attorney general, i hope shes being paid appropriately and i know she is because of the pay grades at the ags office. There is a 1 billion difference between the two of the cut or increased funding for education. It appears to depend on how you count or if you count federal stimulus money and spending on pensions. Math right and your opponents is wrong, and what do the differences at up to for the parents and kids of pennsylvania . They have said we cut. At that pointlace in time. Overve grown the budget 10 billion and we put more money into education at any time in the history of education in pennsylvania. It is important to understand. We had limited revenue in which to do that and when you took stimulus money, put it into the budget, and that was going away, by donnatermed cooper, the policy director, as a risk area that was irresponsible to take place. , 1hile we do disagree billion was cut from education in governor corbetts first term and that is the truth. We went from 6. 4 billion dollars spent on basic education the year before he took office to 5. 3 billion in his first budget. That is a cut of 1 billion. We still that was basically in basic education in the accountability [indiscernible] an Charter School reimbursement. 580 billion dollars today. We have laid off 27,000 educators over the last four years and we have class sizes have gone up. Probably taxes have gone through the roof. We are not spending what we did spend on Public Education in the classroom and i could be seen by everybody. We need to invest in education. If i may could each of you explain what is wrong with what your opponent said, why his accounting or wrong accounting of what has happened he wants to ignore that money has been taken out of the budget before became governor. Federal money was put in and replaced. Remember that risk that was taken by the prior administration, he will not acknowledge that and when he off 7000 teachers were laid , 14,000 occurred in the prior administration. If you look at state spending, money from the taxpayers of pennsylvania, we are at the highest level ever in the history of pennsylvania but you have treat knowledge something that is causing all property taxes to go up and it is something he wants to choose to ignore. It is a little bit of a problem and that is the pension crisis which i am sure there are questions about. Think itfference i governor does not want to take and responsibility. That does not cause the leader from taking responsibility. The responsibility for sitting priorities was his and the fact that we are down in the classroom and classroom spending , 580 million happened on his watch. Pennsylvania is public Pension System debt outweighs their assets by more than a combined 47 billion. That number is expected to reach nearly 65 billion dollars within the next five years. What Pension Reforms would you support and where would you get the money, the funds to increase payments into the states financially ailing pension fund . There are two issues here. One is the plan design and so much of the conversation has been focused on plan design. We actually i think made good plan design changes. It is a bipartisan effort, employers and employees got together and came up with a plan is i and change that i think was fairly draconian and will lead to some real savings. We have a pension liability that you talked about. That 47 billion is pension liability looking out over the next 30 years. We have done something in plan design. What we have not done is paid adequately into the fund over the last 10 plus years and governors have not adequately paid into that fund. We need to figure out a way to do that, pay that debt because that balance keeps coming up. I plan to do something about that. I will not keep delaying payment. I will actually do something. Thank you. Governor. It is interesting to say that mr. Wolf keep saying that governors have not paid and fully. He has not looked at the budgets where we have paid in fully. The number is over 610 million new each year. 610 million last year and this year. That budget will be 3. 3 billion of the budget for the pension. They reduce their contributions to that. We do need to go to a new system. We have recommended and came up with a plan that nobody in the legislature wants to go with that. We have a plan that if we get to another round of questions i support and we will move to that. A followup question. Can you envision a time that it is so dire that you have to stop pensions for these people, these workers . No. Pension Retirement Security is part of a compensation package and part of what we offer teachers. In the staterk police. We have to make sure that they have a pension Retirement Security as part of their congress compensation package. We have an obligation to the people who have been working to put their money in and i understand teachers put their money and and Police Officers put their money and. Legislaturesas in and governors for changing the system and changing the multipliers. We do have to bite the bullet we pays reforming how that system. Act 120 did not solve the problem. There is no sober bullet. What we have to do is take it and look at it for the future. Particularly for new employees that are coming in. Can you say where the additional money that you want to put into the fund, where that money would come from . Budgetn the 29 billion general fund budget, we can rearrange priorities. Tax onalso called for 5 marcellus shale that will add 1 billion of revenue to the general fund. What we have to do is figure out how we are going to pay that 10 billion debt and there are people working on both sides of the aisle. This is what we have to contribute to pay the unpaid debt that we have not paid in the past. This governor and you have been governor for four years now. It is coming kind of late in the process. I agree, we need to fix the pension plan, we need to address the unpaid balance quickly soon. We cannot keep delaying because that will make it much more expensive. We have not done it yet. If i am governor, we will. Governor corbett. He does not answer many questions during the debate. He said where are you going to get the money, that was your question. You get the money through taxes, to the revenue that comes in and that is what becomes a difficult because revenues are coming from the taxpayers of pennsylvania. Developoing to have to a plan that the taxpayers can afford at the same time not harm the workers who have invested in the program. Going to assume he agrees that we have contributed so i am not coming late. We contributed the entire time. I was digging our way out of a 4. 2 billion deficit that i inherited from my predecessor and from his revenue secretary in the first two years. We have been talking about the the pension and it is something the legislature working with the governor are going to have to address because the taxpayers cannot afford not addressing it. Thank you. We have a viewer question that might have something to do with revenue coming from twitter. How do you see the process of legalization of marijuana going in pennsylvania . Governor . Obviously the viewers here in western pennsylvania know my background as an attorney general and as the u. S. Attorney for the Western District of pennsylvania. I do not support the legalization of where one of for Recreational Purposes. I have supported a study with different childrens hospitals across pennsylvania into the and when it comes to forms that have not been discussed in the legislature and i understand the bill might not be going too far that is there. I do not agree with those and do not agree with the legalization of marijuana for Recreational Purposes because i know for all the work i have had to do over the many years that it is a gateway drug that creates all the drug problems were seeing in pennsylvania and the United States. Legalize medical marijuana immediately. We need to make sure that we decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. We put too many people in prison and destroyed too many lives and weaken our economy by taking too many people out of the workforce by having criminal felony charges and mandatory minimum sentences for possession of small amounts of recreational marijuana. We ought to let see what happens in places like colorado and washington before we decide to go further with the legalization of recreational marijuana, however. Thank you. Pennsylvania is one of the nations largest and fastestgrowing natural yes producers. While other states have adopted measures to reduce methane and other air pollution from oil and gas development, pennsylvania has not. Place big to your position on the importance of reducing methane emissions given the increasing role that natural gas plays as a fuel source in the electric power sector. Wewe need to make sure that take full advantage of this National Resource but we have to make sure we are taking advantage of it environmentally responsibility responsibly. I want to put on the the tax on the extraction of natural gas many therapy. Raise 1 billion. Some of that should go to the department of Environmental Protection to make sure we have the right regulations and make sure we have the right number of people who will oversee the regulation of this industry so we do have a clean environment. It is not just methane leakage, also clean water. We have to protect our environment. I think that is a contrast between the approach this governor has taken to this issue. I disagree on the approach we have taken. Forcefulaken a very approach to the protection of the environment. You may have seen different plans we have imposed for making spills and making mistakes out there. When we passed the marcellus we created the toughest environmental laws in the nation when it comes to the development of natural gas in the United States. We have other states and other countries come and see what we did. Haveen and women who work been out there on a regular basis conducting the inspections. Following up on those inspections. We have been imposing fines when necessary to get compliance. There are next steps and i will finish up when we get to it. We have learned that dozens of people who are working in the state Attorney Generals Office on your watch received were forwarded hundreds of sexually explicit emails. How do you account for that climate existing on a Law Enforcement agency despite your suchcit policy against things and do you believe the information on some of those emails that have been released have been politicized to affect this race . That is a double question. Do we get two minutes . I have said it from day one. This is unacceptable. I do not condone the behavior and was not made aware. If i had been made aware i would have stopped it right there and i am disappointed that behavior has taken place. We have taken steps with the people who forwarded that on the work for me today. Were waiting for the attorney general to forward information on all the involved because all exposed ifd to be you want to use that word because this was not political. This was something that she took action against these individuals and what kind of action took place. The chief justice of the Supreme Court has called on her to do that and i would hope that my opponent would also call on her to open up the emails and let the public see. This kind of behavior is acceptable and as i said before, this is something that comes from the top. A culture has existed in this administration that somehow allows people to believe they can do this sort of thing. That should not exist. My experience is you make it clear that these things are not appropriate when and if they happen, you take fast action to hold people accountable. You wanted to minutes. Was it the culture of these people under your watch . Obviously, those who view that were making a mistake. I cannot account for their judgment in that regard. Troubles me greatly they would even do that. Obviously, they did not show it to me so they knew what my reaction would be. If you are talking about a culture from the top committed not come from me. This is a political shot. I would not what up with that. I have been going after pornography cases and child abuse cases my entire career. This is totally an acceptable and i was disappointed that the were viewed and the limited emails we have received with rejection demonstrates they made serious mistakes in judgment. There aret is that Software Programs out there, the state has had a long time. And useddy looked at state property for looking at Something Like that, they were dismissed. That was something that happened five or six years ago when you were attorney general. Fore is ample opportunity without you seeing the evidence to make sure the stuff does not happen. The culture does start from the top and we need to make sure this kind of thing is deemed unacceptable and Everybody Knows it. We have the means at hand to make sure it does not happen. You have been very clear about implementing a 5 severance tax on Natural Gas Drilling and you have said you would overhaul the states personal income tax. What youryou explain specific plans are for overhauling the personal income tax, who will pay less, who pay more, by how much. I think i have been as specific as i can be. I want to make sure we have a fair tax system. That applies to property taxes which are too high and too personal income tax which i think is unfair and it applies to Corporate Income tax and the marsalis shale tax. I want to put a 5 tax at the well head. All those things are my attempt to make the system fairer. I want to make sure that taxpayers get the first break they have had in 20 years. Athink i can make it progressive tax in terms of the income tax and we can reduce property taxes. That is what we have to do is a state and that would be and start contrast to what we have done in this administration. I have told people what we will you and we did it. When i was running for office i laid out what we will do in a cap those promises. Mr. Wolf would suspend wants to spend more money. The question is how much. He needs to tax more to get that money but he will not tell the people how much nor will he tell weeks fromhere a few the election how he is going to do it. Whose taxes are going to go up and go down question mark he has to take aonths, years look. He has been the secretary of revenue. The documents are available and we sent him documents to times to take a look at what is the plan, just to say that we will do something fair is trying to be all things to all people. Dept now i see pensions and and education paid out of one alien dollars. 1 billion. We do want details and you talk about fairness in the system, i think fairness would mean what you are going to do. Even if it means telling us at what level do you see middle income or upper income so we have some more meat when the voters going to the polls and have to make this decision. Yes, i can go as far as i can go and still be honest. If youre in the 70,000 or 90,000 range and you can double that if youre married, you should not pay any more in taxes and people below that will get a break. That is my goal. I cannot be any more specific because as we know in the last budget even with the information this administration came in 700 million before below revenue projections. I do not know what the level of the fiscal mess we have had. We have had five down greetings of bond ratings. Until i get there and find out what were facing i am not going to me more specific than i have said. 90,000 a making 70 to year you will not pay anymore. That is another dodge of answering the question. How much are you going to spend, what do you project as revenue and how will you get the taxes to do that, who will be taxed and by what levels . Progressive tax within four years. The fastest you could get is maybe four or five years so where are you going to get the money for vp and pensions without increasing taxes on pennsylvanians. Downgrading, we know the reason. I warned the people of pennsylvania and the legislature about where downgrading was being cut. The 65 billion that is coming. That is why why downgrading is going on. Dealer question. Wh