Sep 22, 2014 3 min read

HERSHEY – Taxes, state government finances and education policy dominated the first debate in the Pennsylvania governor’s race Monday night, as Republican Gov. Tom Corbett sought to raise questions about the viability of Democrat Tom Wolf’s policy goals and Wolf attacked Corbett’s handling of the economy and schools.

Corbett cast himself as the candidate who will resist increasing government spending and repeatedly questioned where Wolf would find the money to raise state spending on public schools and pay for the state’s pension obligations.

For his part, Wolf sought to frame Corbett as failing to capably steer the state’s economy and government finances, while he cut critical funding for public schools. To burnish his credentials, Wolf continually referred to his experience heading his family’s York-based building products business for nearly three decades as evidence he can invigorate the state’s economy and heal government finances.

“I think we can do better,” Wolf said in a common refrain.

Corbett, Pennsylvania’s former two-term attorney general, cast himself as the candidate willing to make tough decisions and Wolf as the candidate who would raise taxes. He denied cutting aid to public schools – he blamed it on his predecessor, Democrat Ed Rendell – and said he lived up to his promise to pursue limited government and fiscal restraint while instituting methods to better track the performance of schools and educators.

Education spending, he said, “has to be an investment, not just how much can we spend.”

The fast-paced 45-minute event was held in front of a packed Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce and Industry dinner in Hershey.

Candidates were asked by moderator Dennis Owens of WHTM-TV in Harrisburg to answer questions in one minute. At times, they were allowed to rebut each other.

Wolf is heading into the final weeks of the campaign with a cash edge and a hefty polling lead that Corbett has been unable to crack. A Wolf victory in the Nov. 4 election would break a four-decade gubernatorial tradition: ever since the state constitution was changed in 1968 to allow governors to succeed themselves, every governor has been awarded a second term.

Asked to explain Wolf’s polling lead, Corbett acknowledged that probably he had not made his case publicly, but insisted he had made tough decisions to deal with long-standing problems he had inherited.

Wolf was pressed for details on his plans to restructure the state’s flat income tax to shift a bigger burden to higher-earners, and then to increase it in exchange for a dollar-for-dollar reduction in local school property taxes.

Wolf did not budge, and could not give a number when he was asked how much more the state should spend on public education. He did say, however, that the schools are not producing people that many business owners feel they can employ.