BCT Editorial – 3/6/05

This page was last updated on March 17, 2005.

Welfare leeches; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 6, 2005.

This editorial and its companion, “Mississippi,” read as the adult equivalent of a baby who just had his bottle pulled from his mouth. In a lot of ways, these are rehashes of “Slippery slope” (January 12, 2005).

If you believe this editorial is ridiculous, wait until you read “Woe are we” of March 13, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Rural lawmakers in Pennsylvania have forgotten what the ‘commonweal’ in commonwealth is all about.”

[RWC] The editorial attempts to turn the mass transit welfare issue into a rural vs. urban issue. The true antagonists in this issue are the minority of us who receive mass transit welfare and the rest of us. The reason for this attempted deception is simple. It’s easier to bash someone you don’t know in a remote county than it is your neighbor. It’s also easier for the Times because rural areas tend to lean more toward conservative economic, political, and social positions.

“Last week, Gov. Ed Rendell avoided a public transit meltdown in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas by diverting $68 million in federal highway funds to the Port Authority of Allegheny County and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

“The Associated Press reports the funds will last through June 30. If the Legislature does not approve new transit dollars before then, the governor said his administration would ask to divert an additional $344 million in highway funds to keep the state’s transit agencies afloat through 2006.

“Rendell and other Democrats have proposed various ways of raising new money for transit funding, including raising fees on motorists and real estate transfers, but Republicans, who control the Legislature, have said they would rather negotiate transit funding as part of the state budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.”

[RWC] Read these previous three paragraphs carefully. They describe how tax dollars raised for maintaining our highway system will be hijacked to pay for mass transit welfare. They also talk about increasing other taxes on motorists to pay for this welfare.

Nowhere in this editorial will you find a discussion of the propriety of taking tax dollars collected for one purpose and using them for something completely different. Can you imagine the stink the Times would raise if someone ever proposed taking tax dollars from mass transit welfare and using them for roads?

“In addition, the AP reports lawmakers say that any new state funds for transit must be accompanied by more money for road and bridge projects to give members in rural districts an incentive to support it.”

[RWC] Why does the Times rely on the AP for this “news?” Doesn’t the Times staff a Harrisburg office?

“This all-too-prevalent ‘what’s in it for me’ attitude among lawmakers is the exact opposite of what a commonwealth, which is what Pennsylvania is supposed to be, is all about.

“Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines ‘commonweal’ as ‘the public good’ and ‘commonwealth’ as ‘the general welfare; commonweal.’

“Those rural lawmakers who are playing hardball on mass transit are hypocrites. They and their constituents are benefiting from the commonweal while denying mass transit users in the southwestern and southeastern corners of the state the same consideration.”

[RWC] The editorial rails against “what’s in it for me” when it comes to individuals who believe highway tax dollars should be spent on highways, but not the people who want to hijack the funds for their own benefit. Apparently the Times considers mass transit welfare an “entitlement.”

“The governor’s press office reports that 70 percent of the state’s tax revenues come from the southwestern and southeastern parts of Pennsylvania. Much of the money that flows into Harrisburg is funneled to the rural parts of the state. In effect, these areas are welfare leeches living off the wealthiest parts of the state.”

[RWC] It’s funny when a publication with the economic and political leanings of the Times gets upset with “welfare leeches.” After all, we constantly read editorials telling us that local “poor” school districts don’t get enough tax dollars from the rest of us. Are not these so-called poor districts “public education welfare leeches?”

“That’s especially true in regard to public education. Taxpayers in many school districts in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas send far more money to Harrisburg than they get back. That’s because the funding formula the state uses to determine the amount of money school districts receive from the state is weighted according to a district’s local tax base. Basically, the poorer the school district, the more money it receives from the state.”

[RWC] Here’s what the editorial doesn’t want us to know about the public education welfare example. Some of these public education welfare leeches spend more per student than the districts providing the subsidies. I’ve covered this fact in previous critiques. In another attempted deception, the subject editorials want us to believe all public education welfare leeches are rural. In fact, some leeches are Beaver County urban districts and all but two of Pennsylvania’s larger urban districts are leeches, and the two exceptions are on the borderline. Oops, I bet the editorial author didn’t want us to know that.

“Some of the definitions of ‘commonweal’ and ‘commonwealth’ that were cited above are archaic. But that’s OK. No place is that obsolescence more apparent than in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s rural lawmakers’ mindset toward urban mass transit.”

[RWC] I have no problem with the definitions of “commonweal” and “commonwealth,” archaic or not. Being a commonwealth doesn’t mean those who won’t pay their own way have a right to take from the rest of us. Those of us who rely on ourselves for transportation bear the cost of our choice. Those who rely on mass transit must bear the cost of their choice. That’s the way it was before government interfered and turned mass transit into a subsidized “entitlement.”

Paying your own way is “obsolescence?” This says a lot about the Times values. Remember, an earlier editorial (“Slippery slope”) on this topic told us self-reliance and paying your own way puts you on a slippery slope to ruin.