Tom Corbett's sharp right turn.

• Author: Beilke, Dustin

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is facing a tough battle for reelection this fall.

He ran as a moderate in 2010, but ever since he took office, he's moved sharply to the right.

Mike Crossey was not terribly alarmed on Election Night 2010 when he heard that Corbett had won. After working thirty-four years as a public school teacher, most of them in special education in a community near Pittsburgh, Crossey was vice president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state's largest union for teachers and public school employees. The teachers' union had actually endorsed Corbett in his prior races for attorney general.

Corbett ran for governor as a clean-government centrist who would take the politics out of Harrisburg and get things done. His resume even included one year as a high school civics and history teacher before he went to law school.

"That Corbett would govern as an extreme rightwing ideologue was not known to us then," Crossey, who is now the union's president, says. "He's gone completely off the ranch."

And he's kept on going.

"For a governor who is down twenty-two points in the polls, Corbett is keeping us very busy," Crossey said between sessions at this year's Pennsylvania State Education Association summer leadership retreat on the Gettysburg College campus.

After three-and-a-half years of attacking public servants and privatizing public service, Corbett is going after public pensions.

"To me, it's something that has to be done whether it's this year, or next year or the year after," Corbett said during a campaign appearance in Erie in July. He reiterated that he might call a special session of the legislature to deal with pensions before the regular session resumes in January, when he may no longer be governor.

The current Corbett-backed proposal would begin to replace the state's defined benefit system for teachers and other public employees with a 401(k). Research shows that the proposal would reduce pensioners' standard of living without saving the state much money.

Then again, saving money might not be the point.

Corbett signed legislation cutting taxes on businesses by about $1.2 billion.

"The governor could fund our schools and pensions both if he would enact legislation requiring Marcellus Shale drillers to pay a severance tax comparable to other states, and pursue revenue options that recoup some of the over $3 billion we give away each year to corporations," says Keystone Research Center executive...