BCT Editorial – 5/22/06

This page was last updated on May 28, 2006.

Wrong priority; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 22, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Rendell and lawmakers must not rush through property tax cuts

“The results of Tuesday’s primary elections could make a bad situation in Harrisburg even worse.

“For the last few months, legislative leaders and Gov. Ed Rendell have been working to come up with a way to use revenue from legalized slot machines to reduce school district property taxes. Fortunately, politics and egos got in the way.

“Tuesday’s primary elections changed the political environment in Harrisburg. With at least 14 incumbents going down to defeat and several more having near-defeat experiences, returning lawmakers might be looking to placate voters by drastically reducing or eliminating school district property taxes.

“That would be disastrous and unnecessary. Contrary to popular myth, property taxes in Pennsylvania are not onerously high. In fact, they are not even high.

“The IssuesPA Web site of the Pennsylvania Economy League reports that property taxes in Pennsylvania in 2002, the last year in which national comparisons can be made, were $884.97 per capita. That put the commonwealth in 29th place. The national average was $969.26.

“IssuesPA calculated taxes in three other categories, and here’s how Pennsylvania did per capita (with national averages in parenthesis): general sales, $608.32 ($774.33), 36th; individual income, $771.34 ($704.43), 19th; and corporate income, $97.20 ($97.76), 14th.

“The per capita total of the four tax categories was $3,051.88, which put the state in 22nd place.

“But this reflects just one way of calculating taxes. If they are based on a percentage of personal income, Pennsylvania came in at 10.1 percent, slightly below the national average of 10.4 percent. That was good enough for 34th place.

“Both ratings show that while the overall tax burden in Pennsylvania might not be as low as some people would like, it’s also not stink-out-the-joint bad, either.

“It also raises doubts as to the need to reduce property taxes instead of cutting the levy on corporate income, especially if the aim of tax policy is to attract new growth and to encourage expansion of employers to stay here and to expand here. (Pennsylvania’s overall business tax climate isn’t bad. However, it does have a couple of taxes that are outrageously high.)”

[RWC] I wonder if these “couple of taxes that are outrageously high” hit the Times? If so, I’m sure it’s only a coincidence.

“Rendell and lawmakers must look beyond the next election cycle and concentrate on doing what is best for the future of the commonwealth by making its tax structure more competitive, especially in regard to those on business.

“Instead of using revenue from slots to dole out relatively small amounts of often unneeded property tax relief, they should appoint a special, non-legislative commission to come up with plans to modernize the state’s overall system of taxation, using slots revenue to achieve a better balance of taxes and to reduce the overall tax burden.”

[RWC] This is a rehash of recent editorials telling us Pennsylvanians have nothing to gripe about when it comes to taxes, and that elected legislators can’t be trusted to figure out the tax thing.