More than $30 billion in new private-sector investment is now flowing into Pennsylvania, including major new data center and innovation projects. For that momentum to continue, Pennsylvania lawmakers must enact policies to improve the commonwealth’s economic competitiveness.
That was the message PA Chamber President and CEO Luke Bernstein promoted at the PA Press Club June luncheon last Monday.
“These are the kinds of projects that can change the trajectory of entire communities,” Bernstein said. “The single most important thing we can do to set our state up for long-term success is to create an environment that attracts business investment.”
He pointed to recent announcements — including a $10 billion redevelopment project in Homer City and Amazon’s $20 billion data center investment — as evidence that recent bipartisan, pro-growth policy changes in Harrisburg are beginning to pay off.
In recent years, lawmakers from both parties have come together to begin making significant improvements to the state’s tax and permitting environment.
“We’ve started to make progress,” Bernstein said. “We’re gradually lowering our corporate tax rate. We’ve improved the treatment of net operating losses. We’re making strides on permitting and workforce development. We’ve only just started to turn the dial up a little bit on our competitiveness, and already the response from private industry has been enormous.”
But he cautioned that more work is needed — and quickly.
“We have to keep our foot on the gas,” Bernstein said. “While other states are rolling out the red carpet, companies look at Pennsylvania and see us rolling out the red tape.”
Bernstein highlighted the PA Chamber’s recently released Keystone Initiative, a long-term strategy to make Pennsylvania the most competitive state in the country for business. Bernstein outlined four core areas for continued focus:
- Tax Reform – Continue the phase-down of the Corporate Net Income Tax, raise the deduction cap on Net Operating Losses, and eliminate disincentives for investment.
- Permitting – Build on recent bipartisan momentum and make fast, predictable permitting the statewide norm, not the exception.
- Energy Leadership – Use Pennsylvania’s unmatched natural gas reserves to power 21st-century industry, from AI to cloud computing.
- Workforce Development – Expand access to talent pipelines and training, addressing the mismatch between job openings and available skilled workers.
Bernstein warned that Pennsylvania’s long-term decline — including population losses in every U.S. Census over the past century — is not inevitable. But reversing it will take sustained effort.
“We have lost businesses and people because other states have made it easier to invest, build, and grow there, while we have failed to do the same,” he said.
Yet Bernstein ended on an optimistic note, calling on the state to build a future that keeps workers, families, and entrepreneurs rooted in the Commonwealth.
“The future will arrive no matter what,” he said. “But a future we believe in — a future worth fighting for — is ours to build. If we choose to compete.”
You can watch Bernstein’s full speech to the Pennsylvania Press Club here.
Luke’s message and coverage of his Press Club speech was also covered in the PA Business Report, and the Central Penn Business Journal; and in an op-ed in in Broad and Liberty.