Month: April 2023

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Why We Need a Property Tax Circuit Breaker in Pennsylvania

  By Blog post, Property Taxes, Statement, Taxation

tatement of Marc Stier at Senator Jimmy Dillon / Representative Robert Freeman press conference on establishing a property tax circuit breaker in Pennsylvania on April 25, 2023 I’m very pleased to stand with Senator Jimmy Dillon and Representative Robert Freeman in support of establishing a property tax circuit breaker in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center first proposed such a plan in 2015 and our new organization, the Pennsylvania Policy Center, continues to support it. Representative Freeman has long championed it, and we are glad to see Senator Dillion become a champion of it as well. Pennsylvania has long had a serious problem: our tax system is unfair. State and local taxes in our commonwealth place a much greater burden on families with low incomes and moderate incomes than those with high incomes. Just to give you an idea of how unfair our tax system is, consider this: The… Continue reading

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Pennsylvania Policy Center to Launch in Effort to Improve State Policies and Strengthen Communities

  By Statement

ARRISBURG, PA – The Pennsylvania Policy Center, a nonprofit conducting policy research and analysis, will launch next month with the goal of expanding opportunity and promoting equity throughout Pennsylvania. Led by Marc Stier, who has served in leadership roles at policy advocacy organizations for more than two decades, the Center will identify solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing Pennsylvanians from Erie to Philadelphia and Scranton to Pittsburgh. The Center will launch on May 3, 2023. “Regardless of whether you live in rural, urban, or suburban Pennsylvania, most of us are facing the same challenges,” said Stier. “We will focus our research on policies that improve people’s day-to-day lives and strengthen our communities. Our goal is to ensure children get a quality education, working people get the training and support they need to build a better life, and all Pennsylvanians have access to high-quality public services and programs… Continue reading

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Pennsylvania Policy Center to Launch in Effort to Improve State Policies and Strengthen Communities

  By Penn Policy Center

HARRISBURG, PA – The Pennsylvania Policy Center, a nonprofit conducting policy research and analysis, will launch next month with the goal of expanding opportunity and promoting equity throughout Pennsylvania. Led by Marc Stier, who has served in leadership roles at policy advocacy organizations for more than two decades, the Center will identify solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing Pennsylvanians from Erie to Philadelphia and Scranton to Pittsburgh. The Center will launch on May 3, 2023. “Regardless of whether you live in rural, urban, or suburban Pennsylvania, most of us are facing the same challenges,” said Stier. “We will focus our research on policies that improve people’s day-to-day lives and strengthen our communities. Our goal is to ensure children get a quality education, working people get the training and support they need to build a better life, and all Pennsylvanians have access to high-quality public services and programs… Continue reading

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Sitting on a Powder Keg

  By Democracy, Politics, Tump, US

There seems to me to be a total disconnect between political reporting and commentary in our country and the reality of our politics on the ground. Political reporters and pundits are dying for the world to return to the pre-Trump era (forgetting that in many ways, the Republicans were, in their abuse of gerrymandering and the filibuster and embrace of ideas like the independent judiciary theory, well along the way to rejecting the basic norms of representative democracy long before Trump). Harrisburg reporters focus on the calls for bipartisanship from both sides. So, we are seeing reporting on, for example, the Republican presidential nomination race that normalizes it, as it focuses on who is up and who is down, what the strategies of the candidates are, etc. And yet, on the ground, what do we see? –Trump continues to make wild claims about 2020 and masks racist attacks on Alvin… Continue reading