“Caring for our families, our health, our jobs, our homes.”

SPECIFIC INFORMATION AND POSITIONS 

About Joanne Tosti-Vasey

Joanne Tosti-Vasey believes that everyone – regardless of who you are or what you do – should have the opportunity to achieve your dreams. But until you can put food on the table, have a roof over your head, and have reliable transportation and access to quality health care, achieving that dream is impossible. She supports:
• Quality, affordable health care for all; healthcare is a right, not a privilege.
• Providing an equitable education for all regardless of where you live. Our poorer school districts must be equipped with the support and resources necessary to educate all of our students to their full potential.
• Improving our economic well-being by investing in our infrastructure, providing quality public education and training, improving workers’ protections and access to unions, ensuring health care coverage for all, and developing green energy jobs in our agricultural and manufacturing industries.

Top Priority If Elected

Health care reform. All Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care regardless of where they live or their age, income, employment status, or preexisting condition. Our health care system needs a comprehensive reform plan that gives everyone an equal opportunity to be healthy, without forcing anyone to give up the care they already have. I support universal health care. Health care that is privately provided and publicly funded to ensure access to health care for all. This is a human right. For business, this is a cost issue; for employees, this resolves the issue of health care mobility AND fills in the cracks (such as for transplants) in the current system. I also support health care programs in rural areas that place health care providers where people live.

Economic Growth

I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to achieve their dreams. But unless you have the basic needs of food, shelter, transportation, and health care, then achieving those dreams are nigh on impossible. In fact, if you must struggle to meet these basic needs, then your dream is just a pipe dream. We therefore need to spur economic growth through a focus on these basic needs. As part of the legislature, I would listen to and work with others to spur economic growth through increased support of our public education system so that our citizens (adults and children) have access to quality education and training, improving workers’ protections and access to unions, ensuring health care coverage for all, and development of green energy jobs in our agricultural and manufacturing industries.

Education

We need to provide an equitable education for all regardless of where one lives. Our poorer school districts must be equipped with the support and resources necessary to educate all of our students to their full potential. In order to do that, the state needs to step up to their Constitutional responsibility to assist school districts across the state. The state has just made a start in reallocating funds based on a formula to help struggling districts, but we need to do more. Also we need to work towards full-day kindergarten programs and better support of higher public education so that families can afford to send their adult children to college or vocational training.

Pennsylvania Electric Rate Caps

Pennsylvania electric rate caps are set to expire in the next couple of years. It is estimated that customers could see a 20 to 50 percent rate increase in their electric bills. We need to take action before the rate caps expire. We need to reduce our consumption of energy as well as control the spiraling costs of home energy. The state government can help by reconsidering the rate cap removal. The deregulation of the electric industry was done in the belief that multiple companies would come in and provide more competition, thus reducing cost to consumers in the long run. This never happened. Windfall profits are inappropriate and need to be reined in.

Global Warming, Energy, and Greening of Pennsylvania

We need to reduce global warming and cut air and water pollution; we also need to reduce our energy usage. By reducing energy usage, we would also cut our costs. Possibilities on reducing our costs that the state can assist with include: 1) smart meters, 2) rebates for replacing energy-inefficient appliance, 3) allowing choices in how to be billed for electrical use so that we can plan energy use for off-peak, lower cost time periods, and 4) investing in green energy project. Investments in solar power and wind energy will help give a kick start to these industries, as well as providing more jobs within our state and will help to reduce our dependence to some extent on foreign oils.

Pennsylvania's Gas Tax

The gas tax helps to pay for our roads and bridge maintenance and upkeep. We need these funds so that we don’t experience catastrophic road disasters and deaths like what happened in Minneapolis last year. We also need these funds to keep our roads clear of snow and ice in the winter. Because of these concerns, I do not support reducing or eliminating the state gas tax. Yet reducing the cost of gas is necessary. This is both a federal and state issue. The Feds need to pass the windfall profits bill and bills to mandate increased car mileage efficiency. The state should focus on research for alternative fuels and providing incentives to produce and manufacture alternative fuels. Assisting farmers in growing products like switch grass on what is considered marginal land would also help. It would also provide more agricultural jobs and alternative fuels without causing reduction of arable land for food-production or a rise in corn prices (which is happening due to our use of corn for making ethanol).

Tolling I-80

I do not support tolling I-80. This road is used to get commuters to and from work and tolling would increase their already high prices to travel between home and work. Tolling would also result in many drivers – both commercial and private – in choosing alternative routes. This increases the likelihood of accidents and threats to lives. I believe that the tolling is unlikely to go through given the federal government’s reservations about tolling a federally funded and constructed highway. But should this happen, I like Rep. Scott Conklin’s idea of rebating up to $500 per year in an E-ZPass for commuters so that they can get to and from work.

State-Wide Smoking Ban

I support a state-wide smoking ban. Exposure to second-hand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States. Employees who work in places that allow smoking are not able to avoid the smoke, which involuntarily jeopardizes their health. And to protect their own health, many non-smokers and their families avoid establishments that allow smoking, thereby reducing business for these establishments. The fear that a smoking ban in the hospitality industry would hurt profits is also unfounded. When other states and communities have instituted these sorts of bans, business receipts (and subsequently employment) have all increased. I think the only exemption I would support would be for businesses whose sole purpose is to sell tobacco.

General Information About the Candidate:

Hometown: Bellefonte, PA
Family: Joe Vasey, husband and Kenneth Vasey, son
Education: Ph.D., PSU; M.S .and B.S., Virginia Tech
Professional Experience:
•  President, Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. 2006-present; Treasurer, Pennsylvania NOW, Inc. 1994-2005
•  Partner, Tosti-Vasey and Vasey 1988 – present
Political Experience:
•  Commissioner, Pennsylvania Commission for Women (serving as Chair of the Legislative Committee) 2003-present
•  Member, Centre County Advisory Council to the PA Human Relations Commission, 1991-present
•  Treasurer, Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee Women's Caucus, 1996-present
•  Committee Member, Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, 1994-2002
•  Candidate, Bellefonte Borough Council, 2005 – lost by just 24 votes