Month: June 2025

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 28, 2025. Comments are by Marc Stier – Executive Director, Penn Policy Center As Senate begins consideration of the reconciliation bill today, I’m going to be commenting on the politics of reconciliation and the contents of the Senate bill. Sunday, June 29, 10:16 p.m. I’m wearing down after a long day and week, so this will be my last post today. The floor debate, which began at 3:00 pm, will go on for another three to five hours. Democrats will use the time to not only point out the flaws of the bill but also to further delay the process. Following debate, “vote-a-rama” is now expected to begin around midnight. Vote-a-rama will go through the night and the Senate Republican leadership’s goal is to have a final vote on the bill sometime tomorrow, likely late night. But it could be delayed to early Tuesday. We… Continue reading

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 19, 2025. By Marc Stier It appears that my recent letter to the editor in the Inquirer, claiming that business taxes are not a deterrent to business activity in Philadelphia, got under the skin of MAGA mega-donor and Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeff Yass. He responded with a letter of his own: “In a recent letter to the editor, Marc Stier of the Pennsylvania Policy Center states that research shows business taxes are not deterrents to economic growth. Quite the opposite, he adds. The city wage tax, currently about 3.5%, generates approximately $2 billion per year. May I suggest we double it to 7%, raise an additional $2 billion, and increase per-child spending in Philadelphia to $42,000 per student — up from the current $32,000 — for each of our  Jeff Yass, Bala Cynwyd Jeff Yass’s financial acumen is highly touted, so I’m a… Continue reading

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 19, 2025. June 19, 2025 By Marc Stier and Erica Freeman Juneteenth is a day of celebration that marks the end of slavery in America. But it should also be a time of reflection about white supremacy’s continued presence and the way it affects our country. This year, it’s virtually impossible to ignore the resurgence of explicit and unabashed racism in America, which is a major force in the MAGA movement and the steps the current administration has been taking to roll back efforts to diminish the role of white supremacy in the United States. While we celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation, we all know that white supremacy didn’t end with slavery. Today, forced, unpaid Black labor hasn’t ended as contemporary mass incarceration, including chain gangs in some states, forces Black people to engage in unfree labor for meager wages, as did the… Continue reading

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 13, 2025. June 13, 2025 by Marc Stier When they fully understand it, many Trump voters don’t support his roundup of undocumented immigrants. Talk to them and they’ll say, “I want the criminals deported, but we didn’t vote for hardworking people who have been here for years to be thrown out of the country.” Support for Trump’s immigration policies depends largely on people believing the big lie that a substantial number of undocumented immigrants are criminals or that they are receiving government benefits, which aside from K–12 education for children, is rarely true. But there are some who say that undocumented immigrants have “violated our laws” and “jumped the line” and so should be deported. I want to reply to that objection and do so in a way that supports the belief that most Americans—including Trump supporters—hold, which is that most undocumented… Continue reading

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on June 12, 2025. June 12, 2025 By Marc Stier The 2025 Tax Reform Commission (TRC) recently called on the City to eliminate the net income portion of the Business Income and Receipts Tax (BIRT) and to make small cuts to the wage tax. Last week, Mayor Parker endorsed small reductions along these lines.   Following the TRC recommendations, however, would take Philadelphia down the wrong path.   Our organization’s analysis of Philadelphia’s economy and tax structure shows that the TRC report is a flawed anachronism. It repeats the arguments of the 2003 commission, without considering the changes in our economy in twenty years.   First, if we look at the most accurate data, it’s clear that Philadelphia is creating jobs fast. While the city lost more jobs relative to other cities in the Northeast and Midwest in the last quarter of the 20th century, jobs have… Continue reading