Month: March 2022

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It’s Time to Reinstate the Philadelphia Wealth Tax

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Budget, Philadelphia Taxes, Policy reports, Wealth Tax

Wealth inequality in America, in Pennsylvania, and in our region has been growing strikingly since the late 1970s. And wealth inequality continues to increase during the pandemic. The dramatic rise in wealth inequality threatens economic growth, reduces the tax revenues needed to fund vital public institutions, and undermines our democracy. To counter wealth inequality and to raise the revenue needed to fund programs that support the well-being of working people in our city, we call for the reinstitution of a wealth tax of 4 mill or .4% of the value of intangible wealth in Philadelphia. We estimate that this tax would raise more than $200 million per year in revenues for the city, which would provide the funds necessary to create and / or expand programs that would enable us to break down the barriers of class, race, and gender that stand in the way of opportunity for so many… Continue reading

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It’s Time to Help People, Not Oil Companies

  By Energy, Inflation, PA Budget and Policy Center

Pennsylvania’s families and economy are currently being stressed by a rise in prices that’s the result of an unexpectedly quick economic recovery and the supply chain issues it created, the gas price spike created by Russia’s war on the Ukraine, and the determination on the part of multi-national corporations to take advantage of these conditions to maximize their profits. As we have shown elsewhere, the state will have an accumulated surplus of $10.2 billion at the end of the current fiscal year. The Republican-controlled General Assembly has left much ARP money unspent and added far more of it than necessary to the General Fund to balance the budget. It’s time to use that money to deal with the current difficulties faced by Pennsylvania families—including the rise in gas prices—which in turn threaten to slow our economic recovery. Continue reading

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On Cultivated Ignorance

  By Philosophy

When I was 15 I decided life was too short to follow both basketball and hockey. (And I never understood what Icing the puck meant anyway.) That was the start of a life-long devotion to ignoring many of the thinkgs people today care about. I ignore much of the news everyday, starting with the sports pages–except for the NBA–then the gossip page (also known as arts and culture), then the financial pages, and even much of the political pages. On philosophy and politics, I read books and academic journals and journals of opinion and specialized reports. I read enough of the daily press to do my work and to follow the couple of sports I really enjoy, especially basketball. Even there, I pay a lot more attention to specialized on-line sports journals than the daily press. (Sports writers in the daily press are the worst of journalists, imo.) I pay… Continue reading

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STATEMENT: Celebrating the 12th Anniversary of the ACA

  By ACA, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements

Tomorrow, March 23, 2022, is the 12th anniversary of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. This is a day worth celebrating because of the enormous advances it made in enabling Americans, including almost a million Pennsylvanians, to secure quality, affordable health insurance.   In just twelve years, the ACA has succeeded in cutting the number of uninsured Pennsylvanians in half. The percentage of Pennsylvanians under 65 who are uninsured has declined from 11.9% in 2010 to 6.6% in 2017. The decline has been particularly striking for Black Pennsylvanians between 18 and 64 for whom the percentage of uninsured has declined from 24% in 2010 to 11.4% in 2017 and Hispanic Pennsylvanians, for whom the rate has declined from 32.2% in 2010 to 18% in 2017. The rates at which Pennsylvanians were uninsured increased by a few tenths of a percentage point after 2017 due to Trump administration restrictions on the… Continue reading