I usually don’t go down this road, and I like the next guy hate taxes. However I understand that they are needed to keep all the things we bitch about up and going. As always the local right-wing radio talking heads are fueling the fire, and giving all the facts. Read on.>>>
Yesterday, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell announced the state budget. The governor proposed a 2.3 billion dollar budget plan for the state.
Article
Gov. Ed Rendell handed lawmakers a $27.3 billion spending blueprint on Tuesday that calls for a grab bag of new taxes on consumers, employers, oil companies, tobacco users and waste haulers to finance initiatives that include expanded health care, alternative energy development and property-tax reductions.
Governor Rendell explained that this comes after a year of artful tax-dodging by the oil companies, on paying their taxes to the state. Also to blame is the fact that the federal funding to the state was cut last year.
One of the proposals would be to raise the Sales Tax by 1%.This would raise the tax to 7% except in counties that have already raised the sales tax for their citizens.
The Governor is proposing new taxes on, tobacco, employers, waste haulers, and oil companies. These taxes will go towards the long awaited Property tax relief.
Rendell is taking a unique approach when it comes to adding a tax to oil; he wants to tax those who make the gas, not directly to the consumer. I believe that he is doing it this way so that the tax burden will be a minimized hit on consumers.
Rendell said major oil companies are playing "a sophisticated shell game" to dodge state taxes on most of the profits they earn in Pennsylvania.
"For the first time, we propose to tax those who make gasoline rather than those who buy it," the Democratic governor said in a speech begun shortly before noon.
Another plan of the governor is to lease out the Turnpike system to a privet company. Other states have done this and turned a profit, while having fine highways.
Among the surprises was a plan to finance expanded highway and bridge improvements by leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private company, which Rendell says will bring in as much as $965 million a year. He also proposes a new tax on oil-company profits that would generate an estimated $760 million annually for the cash-strapped public-transit agencies across the state.
A tax on tobacco is just what I need to quit smoking. Yea right. While we all know that tobacco use is not healthy for the user. And the debate is on about those who breathe in the secondhand smoke. (That’s another diary.) Adding to the sin-tax is going to be a double whammy for those users. They will be hit by two taxes on one product, the sin-tax and the sales tax.
A lot of the need for increasing taxes comes from unfunded mandates put on states by the federal government. It is an old subject, but if you loved your messily tax cut the Bush administration gave you, it’s time to start paying the piper. Most know that while they were feeling euphoric about those couple of dollars from G.W., it was hurting education, and many other projects on the state level. This in turn, falls to the county, then to the city, townships and small towns.
So while the right-wing in Pennsylvania is take this opportunity to jump on Governor Rendell, they should be truthful and explain why this is needed.
The Rant
After I wrote this today, I set it aside as I always do and came back to spell check and such. In between then and now I visited Pl 6 in yahoo where we got into a debate on taxes. At that time a couple of diehard Bush supporters came in and join the debate. (This turned to a shouting match.) I was explaining how the Bush Trickle Down Tax Cuts are working. We need to understand what’s being done here.
The federal Tax Cuts had to come from somewhere and they did, most was done on a line of credit that will not be paid-off for at least three generations. Other money came from you and I, more than three times. The tiny tax cut people got, if they even received one, has effected the states, so you are paying there, your county government, so you are paying there, and you local municipality so you are paying there.
In the article I sited, which was from Fox Noise, they made sure that you knew that Governor Rendell was a Democrat. And this morning Jim Quinn spoke on the subject only enough as to let his brain washed Bush Bots know that Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor was going to raise taxes. Oh yea, and to let them know that all Muslims are murdering whack-jobs. (But that is another Diary.)
However even now we here the talking heads telling us how good the economy is and has grown. That is not true; the price of everything has gone up. The only ones doing well are the top 1 to 5 percent. The line that makes me laugh every time I hear it is the people are spending more money this year than last. Well no joke, everything cost almost double of what it did a year ago.
I know that I should not let these morons get to me, but for them to get away with the lies, and hate speech that they do pisses me off to no end. Well that concludes my rant. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
Peace ABA