{"id":875177,"date":"2026-10-08T13:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T13:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875177\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T13:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T13:40:15","slug":"shapiro-garrity-clash-over-budget-healthcare-in-gubernatorial-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875177\/","title":{"rendered":"Shapiro, Garrity clash over budget, healthcare in gubernatorial debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">HARRISBURG, Pa. (WPVI) &#8212; Pennsylvania&#8217;s candidates for governor faced off Wednesday night in their first and only debate ahead of the November election, sparring over healthcare, state finances and other key issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">During the debate, which aired locally on PHL17, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized Republican challenger Stacey Garrity on several issues, including her support of a bill in Congress that approved healthcare cuts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Garrity, meanwhile, challenged Shapiro&#8217;s handling of state finances, including his use of Pennsylvania&#8217;s surplus to cover budget deficits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Today, we have an economy that&#8217;s growing faster than ever before. Today we are having record revenues come in, and today we are in a stronger position with an $8 billion budget surplus,&#8221; Shapiro said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;The $8 billion is a rainy day fund, and the intended spending on that is for an economic downturn or a crisis. It&#8217;s not to plug a budget hole,&#8221; Garrity replied.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The candidates also answered questions on data centers, rising gas prices and funding for public education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Watch the full debate here:<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. (WPVI) &#8212; Pennsylvania&#8217;s candidates for governor faced off Wednesday night in their first and only debate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[368362,97,252,253],"class_list":["post-875177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-368362","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}