A relative unknown at the start of the year, Tom Wolf has gone on to become the Democrat elected gubernatorial candidate, now poised to unseat incumbent Governor Tom Corbett in the Nov. 4, 2014 Pennsylvania general election.
Born and raised in York, PA, Wolf attended The Hill School, an elite boarding school in Pottstown, PA. From there he went on to study at Dartmouth University to attain his B.A.
While at Dartmouth, Wolf decided to leave school temporarily to join the Peace Corps, where he was stationed in rural India. During his time in the Peace Corps, Wolf worked on agricultural and irrigation projects for two years in Orissa, India.
Wolf returned to Dartmouth in 1971 after his Peace Corps stint was over. Upon graduating, he got a master’s degree from London University, and then started work on his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Wolf met his wife, Frances, while in school. They have been married for 39 years, and have raised two daughters, Sarah and Katie.
After graduating from M.I.T. in 1979, Wolf went back home to start working at the WOLF Organization—his family business specializes in kitchen-cabinet design and distribution—as a forklift operator and warehouse worker, until purchasing the company in 1985 with his two cousins.
In 2006 Wolf sold his company to a private equity firm, and was later nominated by Governor Ed Rendell to be the Secretary of Revenue in January 2007. Wolf donated his government salary to charity and refused a state car, opting to drive his own personal jeep.
He served as the Secretary of Revenue on Rendell’s cabinet from April 2007 until he resigned in November 2008 to run for governor of Pennsylvania in the 2010.
However, Wolf backed out in order to repurchase the Wolf Organization, which was facing bankruptcy.
On April 2, 2013, Wolf announced his candidacy for governor and went on to win the primary election, held on May 20, 2014, and the Democratic nomination for governor.
As such, he will face incumbent Governor Tom Corbett on the Nov. 4 in the general election.
Tom Wolf on the issues:
•Abortion Rights: Wolf supports women’s right to choose
•Health Care: Wolf would scrap elements of “Healthy PA” in favor of a traditional Medicaid expansion. In particular, he opposes the premium structure that would go into effect in 2016 for certain new Medicaid enrollees and the reduction of benefits being sought by Corbett for healthier adults in the traditional Medicaid program.
•Education: Wolf would increase spending on public schools by $1 billion and seek to increase the state’s share of public school spending to 50 percent of the overall cost from the current level of about 33 percent. Wolf would convene a commission to develop funding formulas for charter schools and cyber charters.
•Minimum Wage: Wolf supports increasing Pennsylvania’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, set by federal law, to $10.10 over a two-year period and indexing it to inflation.
•Public Pensions: Wolf would maintain a defined benefit pension program for public employees and oppose switching to a 401(k)-style plan. He opposes further delaying the state’s annual pension obligation payments and would consider supporting a taxpayer-backed bond to pay down pension debt.
•Natural Gas Policy: Wolf opposes a broad moratorium on natural gas drilling and opposes the leasing of more state parks and state forest for drilling. Wolf supports a moratorium on drilling in the Delaware River Basin. Wolf also supports imposing a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas extraction.
•Gay Rights: Wolf would support legislation to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in matters of housing, employment and public accommodation. Wolf also supports recognition of same-sex
marriage.
•Gun Rights: Wolf would sign legislation to expand background checks, ban assault weapon sales, require reporting of lost and stolen guns and allow municipal gun control ordinances.
•Liquor: Wolf opposes a system of private licensing, and instead would liberalize existing laws to encourage a more profitable state-store system.
•Taxes: Wolf supports increasing income taxes to offset reductions to school property taxes. He would seek to change Pennsylvania’s personal income tax law to shift a bigger burden to higher earners, but he has not given full details. He would seek to close the “Delaware loophole” through a change in law called combined reporting. He would seek to lower the corporate net income tax rate, although he has not given full details.
•Marijuana: Wolf would sign legislation to legalize marijuana for broader medicinal purposes. He supports decriminalizing possession of less than 1 once of marijuana.
Top 10 donors to Tom Wolf’s campaign:
1.Tom Wolf – $10 million
2. M. Thomas Grumbacher (chairman of the board, Bon-Ton
Stores) – $2.2 million
3. Louis J. Appell Jr. (former owner of Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Co., a pottery maker) – $725,000
4. Pennsylvania State Education Association PAC – $700,000
5. William Wolf – $650,000
6. Committee for a Better Tomorrow (Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association PAC) – $600,000
7. Pennsylvania Service Employees International Union – $500,000
8. American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees – $500,000
9. Democratic Governors Association – $475,000
10. American Federation of Teachers – $450,000