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A Severance Tax: The Basics

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Severance Tax, Taxation

Pennsylvania has been considering a severance tax on natural gas for years. Here are four reasons it is long overdue: TALKING POINT #1: A severance tax can bring in substantial and, as natural gas prices rise, growing revenues to help close our budget and investment deficits now and in the future. Governor Wolf’s proposal is projected to bring in $349 million next year, $712 million in 2018-2019 and $1.15 billion a year by 2021-22. (These are net revenues after deducting a credit for the impact fee already paid by natural gas drillers.) Even a tax at slightly lower levels brings in over $200 million next year and close to a billion dollars a year 2021-2022. TALKING POINT #2: Oil and gas development companies pay comparatively little in state taxes now. Even though gas production has increased from 4,070 billion cubic feet in 2004 to 5,096 in 2016, total revenue from… Continue reading

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What Is the Fair Share Tax?

  By Fair Share Tax, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation

The main reason that Pennsylvania’s tax system is so upside down — with the top 1% paying only 4.3% of their income in taxes while the middle 20% pays 10% — is that the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibits us from enacting a graduated personal income tax. Sales and property taxes tend to take a higher percentage of the income of taxpayers at the bottom and in the middle than at the top. But graduated income taxes in many states — including all of our neighbors — compensate by taxing those at the top at a higher rate. We can start to fix our broken tax system by adopting what we call a Fair Share Tax which has been introduced by Senators Costa, Hughes, and Haywood as SB555.  Here are the key elements of it: The Personal Income Tax which is currently set at 3.07% will be divided into two taxes. The… Continue reading

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What Would an Adequate Pennsylvania Budget Look Like This Year?

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

What Would an Adequate Pennsylvania Budget Look Like This Year? A really good budget for Pennsylvania would begin addressing our long-term public investment deficit. It would provide new funds to: eliminate our worst-in-the-nation inequality in K-12 school funding; expand pre-K education to all three and four year-olds; make higher education more accessible, especially to students from low-income families; restore the funding that would allow the Department of Environment to better protect our air and water; provide new funding to repair roads and bridges and support public transit.   Continue reading

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Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

  By PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation, US

Sam Brownback became governor of Kansas in 2010 just as Tom Corbett became governor of Pennsylvania. Brownback and Corbett, with the help of Republican majorities in their legislatures, embarked on an extremist Wizard of Oz economic agenda of cutting taxes, especially for large businesses, and reducing spending on education and human services. Spending as a share of the state’s economy dropped by 10% in our state. Faced with slow economic growth, stark budget deficits, and citizens who were demanding better public services, a bi-partisan majority in the legislature in Kansas this week stood up for common sense against Wizard of Oz extremism and, over Brownback’s veto, rolled back many of those tax cuts. Is this the year that state legislators in Pennsylvania also embrace common sense and reject extremism?   Continue reading

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Pennsylvania’s Budget Choices This Year

  By Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Budget, Take political action

As we head into what everyone hopes will be the last month of the Pennsylvania budget season, this is a good moment to take stock of where we are and what’s at stake in the decisions the governor and General Assembly will make this year. Doing so will also explain why the Pennsylvania’s Choice campaign is urging people to attend a tele-town hall on the budget at 7:15 on June 1, a budget rally at noon on June 5 in Harrisburg, and lobbying days later in the month. (More information and registration for these events can be found here.) Continue reading

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It’s Not Just a Number but Lives–the CBO Score of the AHCA

  By Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Tump, US

Originally published at ThirdandState. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the Republican health care plan, the ACHA, released today shows the danger of Congressional action in advance of a serious analysis of the impact of legislation. Though it was touted as a new and improved version of the bill that failed in March, the CBO analysis shows the bill that passed the House is no better, and in some ways, far worse. The CBO estimates that, at the end of ten years, 23 million fewer Americans will have health insurance because of the legislation, which is one million less than the estimate of their earlier bill. Most of the lost health insurance created by the AHCA is the result of the slow repeal of the Medicaid expansion and the replacement of the federal entitlement to traditional Medicaid by a per-capita cap on federal funding of the program. These devastating… Continue reading

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Terrorism Will Get Nowhere in Great Britain

  By Great Britain, International politics, Terrorism

I’m listening to the BBC and marveling at the resolve and sensibility of the folks in Manchester. Young women are saying, “Some things we can’t control. So we just go about our lives.” If there are any people who history shows can’t be terrorized it is the English, Welsh, and Scots. They have stood guard at the gates of our civilization before and never given up. Continue reading

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The Trump Budget

  By Federal Budget, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Public Policy

Originally published at Third and State.   President Trump’s budget is a triple betrayal of his campaign promises, of working people in Pennsylvania and around the country, and of a uniquely-American economic order that has created the shared prosperity that America once enjoyed and should enjoy again. The President is, first, betraying his promise not to cut Medicaid, Social Security, and the social safety net, that is, programs relied on by those left behind in a changing economy. In doing so he is, second, betraying the promise that America has made to working people to ensure that they have the important assistance to meet basic living standards: food on the table, a roof over their heads, and access to health care that millions of Pennsylvanians rely on. The budget proposal calls for a huge reduction in these vital programs in order to give massive tax breaks to the wealthy and… Continue reading

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Another Term for Alan Butkovitz

  By 2017 Controller race, Philadelphia

In all excitement about the DA’s race, a lot of Philadelphians have not paid much attention to the Controller’s race, also on the ballot. My choice in that race, as it was four years ago, is Alan Butkovtiz. Four years ago I wrote this in support of him against an opponent who had a strong record as an independent thinker on budget matters: “If you actually read the reports of our Controllers, as I have for many years, you will see that under Alan Butkovitz, the office of the Controller has done some exemplary work. His report on emergency medical response and the follow up reports are fabulous (and address an issue I care a great deal about and campaigned on in 2007.) He’s revelations of corruption in the Sherriff’s office has led to criminal investigations and civil action to recover millions of dollars. He’s issued many other reports pointing to wasteful spending and sources… Continue reading

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About That Letter About Larry

  By 2017 DA Race, Philadelphia, Politics

  There is a letter from 12 “former Assistant DAs” calling on voters not to vote for Larry Krasner on the grounds that he has never been a prosecutor, that he has been misleading in criticizing the culture of the District Attorney’s office, and that our safety will be at risk. Not only do I not find the letter plausible, for a number of reasons, large and small, the more I read it and learn about those who signed it the more appalled by it I get. To start with the big reasons. First, we don’t need to take Larry Krasner’s word for the problems in the DA’s office. There is plenty of independent evidence. We know that mass incarceration, especially of black men, is a serious problem across America and the rate of incarceration in Philadelphia is among the highest in the country. We know that the Philadelphia DA’s… Continue reading