BCT Editorial – 11/23/04

This page was last updated on November 23, 2004.

For once, think big; Editorial; Beaver County Times; November 23, 2004.

As you will read below, the Times’ idea of thinking big is spending and taxing big.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“We would like to offer the following modest suggestion as a motto for the General Assembly: ‘Where Good Ideas Go to Die.’

“Eons ago, or so it seems, Gov. Ed Rendell came up with Growing Greener II, a program to:

[RWC] Eons ago? Gov. Rendell has been in office less than two years and he proposed GGII only nine months ago. Nothing like hyperbole, eh Times?

* Reclaim the commonwealth’s rivers and streams, which are polluted by acid mine drainage.

* Rehabilitate brownfields, old industrial sites that are virtually useless because their ground is contaminated.

* Preserve farmland and forests, which are being gobbled up at an alarming rate.

* Improve state parks and game lands.

* Revitalize older communities.

“Rendell put an $800 billion price tag on the proposal, which he wants to pay for via borrowing (and using increased fees, including trash-hauling fees, to pay off the bonds). The Associated Press reports the proposed fee increases - an extra $5 per ton on municipal waste and $4 per ton on industrial waste - would cost a family of four $20 a year.”

[RWC] “The Associated Press reports?” Heaven forbid that the Times would do its own research.

“But that’s only half of the story - and the revenue generating. Pennsylvania is the garbage dump capital of the United States, importing 10.6 million tons of out-of-state trash in 2002.

“That’s about half of the trash that is dumped in Pennsylvania, which means that residents and businesses in other states would pay for about half of the bond issue. It’s like getting a 50-50 matching grant. We’d get an $800 million Growing Greener II for $400 million. (Redeeming the bonds would cost more than that, but you get the idea.)”

[RWC] Gee, only $400+ million. What a deal! Paraphrasing the late Sen. Everett Dirksen, “A million here and a million there, and soon you’re talking about real money.” Socialists have such an easy time spending someone else’s paycheck or pension check.

“Please understand that Growing Greener II’s targets are important to Pennsylvania’s future, especially in regard to cleaning up for the environmental damage done to waterways and land because of our industrial past.”

[RWC] Can the Times can explain how protecting uneconomic farms is “important to Pennsylvania’s future?” Why not “protect” all uneconomic businesses in Pennsylvania? What about raiding my income to fix municipalities whose residents are responsible for their decline? Paraphrasing a statement the Times likes to use about Iraq, “They broke it; they bought it.”

“But ‘bold thinking’ and ‘Pennsylvania Legislature’ are phrases that seldom pop up in the same sentence.”

[RWC] No argument on this. The General Assembly has a socialist view of the world despite the Republican majority. That said, I suspect my idea of “bold thinking” and that of the Times are quite different.

“The AP reports Republicans who control the Legislature largely oppose the idea of borrowing or raising trash-hauling fees to pay for the borrowing.”

[RWC] Again, the Times doesn’t do its own reporting.

“They’re also not thinking big, with Rep. William F. Adolph Jr., R-Delaware County, who co-chairs a commission appointed to look into this matter, favoring a package of $250 million to $400 million that would not need higher fees or taxes to finance it.”

[RWC] Anyone want to bet the Times would call a tax cut of similar magnitude too big?

“Folks, we’ve been doing it their way for more than a decade, and what has it gotten us? One of the lowest growth rates in the nation, a stagnant, aging population and a future that isn’t very promising.”

[RWC] Ever notice that the Times solution to Pennsylvania’s self-inflicted economic woes is always to spend taxpayer dollars and raise taxes? These folks need to take Econ 101 from a non-Marxist.

“Their way” refers to Republicans. What the Times doesn’t acknowledge is during the Ridge/Schweiker years, commonwealth spending increased an inflation-adjusted 24.4% with a Republican-controlled General Assembly despite a stagnant population and a state economy significantly under performing the rest of the country. To be clear, this does NOT include local spending. This is nearly the same as Casey’s 25.4% over the same number of years. Make no mistake about it, though they may have different letters after their names – D or R – General Assembly members share the same underlying economic philosophy – socialism. It doesn’t work and even the Times acknowledges it, though the Times wants us to believe PA Republicans employed conservative policies.

“It’s time to think big, to be bold.”

[RWC] Here we have it. Big and bold equals higher spending and taxes.

“Oops, we forgot. We’re talking about members of the Pennsylvania Legislature, which can find the money and the will to raise their salaries to benefit themselves but come up short in both categories when it comes to Growing Greener II, something that would benefit the commonwealth.”

[RWC] Neither “black holes” deserve funding.

“‘This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.’ - T.S. Elliot, ‘The Hollow Men.’”