This page was last updated on May 2, 2011.
Red-light districts: Philly drivers’ lead feet foot local bills; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 1, 2011.
The editorial says, “Despite what you may hear (and believe), the counties in southeastern Pennsylvania (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia) and Allegheny County in our region are the wealthiest in the commonwealth. It is their residents who are (and have been) subsidizing state services in other parts of the commonwealth, especially funding for public education, and roads and bridges. They pay the most in income taxes. They produce much of the sales-tax revenue.” I advise against taking these allegations seriously without doing your own research. In any case, you’ll note the Times doesn’t make this argument with respect to increasing federal tax rates for “the rich.” Based on 2008 income tax data, the top 1% of filers paid 38% of the total and the top 5% paid 59%, yet the Times supports increasing rates on these folks.
The editorial ends with “The truth is that without the tax revenue from southeastern Pennsylvania and Allegheny County, Pennsylvania really would be Alabama in the middle, as political adviser James Carville once described the middle part of the state.” Does this mean without the alleged “tax revenue from southeastern Pennsylvania and Allegheny County” we would have Honda, Hyundai, and Mercedes auto assembly plants, a Toyota engine plant, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center?
As for the James Carville quote, you won’t be surprised to learn the editorial misrepresented it. On www.pbs.org, Scott LaMarr of WITF-TV in Harrisburg wrote in 2004, “Democratic consultant James Carville is quoted as saying, ‘Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.’ That colorful description of the Keystone State’s politics, which was not meant to be a compliment, is repeated in every statewide election cycle. Carville was referring to the fact that most of Pennsylvania’s Democrats reside in the two largest urban areas, located at opposite ends of the state, while the mostly rural central and northern counties - called the ‘T’- are dominated by Republicans.” It’s fairly clear the Carville quote was about politics, not tax revenue as the Times would have us believe.
As I’ve written previously, here’s a radical – and probably “mean-spirited” – idea. Whether we live in urban, suburban, or rural areas, why don’t we all just pay our own way for education, law enforcement, transportation, et cetera? Nothing good comes from trying to pick another taxpayer’s pocket.
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