Governor Wolf proposes liquor privatization compromise

DATELINE HARRISBURG:

Governor Wolf has proposed an historic liquor privatization compromise with Republicans. Patterned after Governor Corbett's extremely successful Lottery Privatization scheme, Wolf's proposal includes:

• Keeping the PLCB wholesale and retail monopoly in place
• Keeping and expanding the State Store System as a state jobs program
• Increasing the number of State Store System workers
• Keeping the same conflict of interest of the government selling and regulating alcohol
• Keeping a single person or department who selects what the entire state is allowed to buy.
• Adding another layer of fully-funded bureaucracy to the liquor system
• Trading a state-controlled monopoly for another state-controlled monopoly (with a different name)
• Dangling the possibility that this could someday maybe possibly somehow a long way off lead to wine at supermarkets and beer in convenience stores...in some manner
• Other yet to be named and explained items

Some Republican leadership said they would have to study the proposal to figure out exactly what, if anything, this would change, or if the Governor was pulling another joke on them, like his trying to raise taxes by $4.7 Billion this year. Others simply refused to believe that this was a compromise and flatly rejected the notion as they should.

Stay tuned to this blog for further developments!

(Please note: we've added a new tag: "You've Got To Be Kidding." If Governor Wolf continues on his current path, it's going to see a lot of use; watch for it!)