Category: Pennsylvania

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Some Things are Worse Than a Late Budget

  By Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Pennsylvania State Taxes

From the Third and State blog. As the June 30th deadline looms, we have little more than rumors about what kind of Pennsylvania budget might be enacted by the General Assembly for 2016-17. But while some may find optimism in talk of getting the budget done, the rumors we are hearing about the details of the budget in the works are extremely worrisome. We know that everyone on both sides of the aisle wants a budget done more or less on time. All members of the House and half the members of the Senate face re-election in November, and none of them want a long, drawn-out budget and delays in funding schools and human services. Yet to reach agreement on a budget legislators have to find their way between their determination to get one done and the structural deficit that requires either some new revenues or difficult budget cuts. More… Continue reading

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Finally: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse!

  By Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

Originally appeared on the Third and State blog, May 24, 2016 After ribbing Senator Wagner and his fellow members of the taxpayer caucus for not understanding the basics of budgeting, I want to acknowledge that they did come up with a really good idea today. It appears that the Pennsylvania State Police take two sheets of paper to print tickets. Some intrepid investigator discovered that they could get the whole thing on one sheet of paper if they printed in landscape rather than portrait mode. At 8 cents per sheet of paper for the 542,000 tickets they print, that’s a savings of $43,384. We at PBPC are always interested in making government cost efficient and we acknowledge that this is a great idea. We hope it won’t be delayed while we study whether it’s better to print landscape mode or just use two-sided printing. Now, at this rate of savings,… Continue reading

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How to Create a Progressive Income Tax in Pennsylvania

  By Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State Taxes, Published op-eds

Originally appeared as How to create a progressive income tax in Pennsylvania, in Newsworks, May 24. So, it turns out that you can actually create a fair income tax in Pennsylvania. One of the unfortunate conditions of Pennsylvania politics has been our “uniformity clause,” which prohibits taxing any one class of income at different rates. It has stood in the way of creating what most states with an income tax have, a graduated system in which those with higher incomes pay at a higher rate. A consequence of our uniformity clause is that our state and local taxes, taken together, are among the most regressive in the entire country. The Institute on Tax and Economic Policy lists Pennsylvania as one of the “Terrible Ten” states with the most unjust tax system. It’s not hard to understand why. State and local taxes take a little over 12 percent of the income of the… Continue reading

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#Namethecuts

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

Originally published at Third and State, April 4, 2016 It appears that some elements in the Republican Party of Pennsylvania have one and only one goal – to not raise taxes. It doesn’t matter if spending in our classrooms, and especially in the classrooms in our lowest income communities, have not recovered from the Corbett cuts of 2011-12; they won’t raise taxes. It doesn’t matter if waiting lists for mental health and intellectual disability services grow; they won’t raise taxes. It doesn’t matter if tuition keeps rising for our colleges and universities. It doesn’t matter if the budget is “balanced” with smoke and mirrors; they won’t raise taxes. It doesn’t matter if the ratings agencies can see through the smoke and mirrors and plan to downgrade our credit again; they won’t raise taxes. And now that all the special funds have been raided, all the bills have been put off… Continue reading

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Wolf, Legislators, and School Advocates Must Stand Together for PA Education

  By Education, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

Originally published at Newworks, March 16, 2016 We are heading into a critical time in the seemingly endless Pennsylvania budget crisis. This is the moment when Pennsylvanians must stand strong for a budget that is not only done but done right. And that means a budget that finally, after years of deep cuts and shallow restorations, begins to fund education at levels that meet the needs of our children. Many of us want to attain that aim. But to know how to get there, we have to understand the forces, inside and outside the Capitol Building, that oppose us. They would rather see devastating cuts to education rather than increase taxes. Education advocates vs. extremist forces Some of those who take this view believe, falsely, that much education spending is useless and wasteful. They don’t grasp, as most Pennsylvanians do, that the money we spend on education is vital not only… Continue reading

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How Low Will They Go?

  By Education, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

Originally published Third and State Blog, March 4, 2016 The majority of Pennsylvanians believe that every child in Pennsylvania deserves a high quality education. We believe that the best education for everyone is central to creating economic opportunity for individuals. And we believe that economic growth is only possible with a highly educated work force. And we know both of these aims can only be attained if we provide adequate and equitable funding to each of our schools. So when legislators or advocates on the right challenge the demand for adequate and equatibale funding we sometimes find it hard to understand what they want. How little funding are they prepared to give students in poor communities Pennsylvania before they will say it’s too low? How low will they go? A recent op-ed by the Commonwealth Foundation gives us the beginning of an answer. And it’s extremely disturbing. To judge by… Continue reading

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Senator Corman’s Budget Fantasy

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Public Policy

The Independent Fiscal Office’s projection that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania faces a $1.8 billion structural deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1 is now beyond dispute. And we at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) believe that there are only two ways forward. One path leads to a relatively small tax increase that closes the deficit and restore funding for education and human services. The other path leads to devastating cuts in education and human services. In response to that stark choice, Senator Corman has decided to change the subject by focusing on pension costs in his column in Pennlive. Senator Corman must know this is a complete fantasy. PBPC has analyzed various pension “reform” proposals over the years and we’ve shown not only do they barely reduce expenditure in the short term, they also don’t save much money in the long term. We’ve also demonstrated that pension… Continue reading

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Pennsylvania at the Crossroads

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget

Originally published at Third and State, February 9, 2016 Pennsylvania is at a crossroads. We face a stark and profound choice between two different paths. The first path would build on the broad consensus about public policy that animated our politics for generations. That consensus, forged by both Democrats and Republicans, recognizes that without good public education, our kids won’t succeed and our economy will stall.  It accepts responsibility for taking care of the disabled, ill and aged who, through no fault of their own, need our help. It seeks no more, but also no less, taxation and government necessary to attain these critical goods. And it places the tax burden on those who can afford it most, corporations and the wealthy. The other path, which abandons common sense and is contrary to the experience of most Pennsylvanians, tell us that government never works. It falsely proclaims that our schools… Continue reading

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On PA Budget: “Declare Victory” and Go Home

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Public Policy, Published op-eds

Originally published in NewsWorks, February 5, 2016 In 1966, Senator George Aiken returned from a trip from Vietnam with the recommendation that the United States “declare victory and bring the troops home.” It wasn’t entirely clear that the U.S. had won the war at that point, but we also hadn’t yet lost the war (as we would after another eight years of suffering and death). It’s a very different context, but I’m inclined to give the General Assembly similar advice: Finish the work on the bipartisan budget, declare victory, and go home. Last year, an appropriations bill that implements the bipartisan budget framework, SB1073, passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote of 43-7. It was one roll call vote short of passing the House in December, having already been approved by a narrow, yet bipartisan, majority on second reading. The General Assembly should return to that bipartisan approach now and then… Continue reading