In his proposal to the State Legislature yesterday, Governor Ed Rendell proposed raising Pennsylvania\u2019s income tax by 34 percent to pay for fixing a property-tax system that the governor says is a \u201cstatewide disgrace.\u201d The proposed increase in the income tax will also help improve public education and stimulate job opportunities.
\nThe state senator representing Northern Blair County has questions concerning the second phase of the plan.
\nThe budget for 2003-04 has been signed into law by the governor.
\n\u201cThere is not enough detail to what has been proposed to make any final determinations,\u201d said Senator Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer. \u201cThere are still some major pieces missing from the budget. There certainly will be some hard questioning and thorough analysis in the weeks ahead.\u201d
\nThe state tax increase would be the first in 11 years and would push Pennsylvania\u2019s flat rate from 2.8 percent to an unprecedented 3.75 percent. A family with a taxable income of $40,000 would pay an additional $380 per year under the proposal.
\nEven with the increase, Pennsylvania would have the third lowest personal income tax rate among the 41 states that have the tax on the books.
\nThe Rendell plan would give $1.5 billion to 500 local school districts to reduce property taxes by an average of 30 percent and by no less than 15 percent in any district. An exception would be made for Philadelphia, whose share of that money would be used to reduce the city\u2019s local wage tax instead.
\n\u201cProperty tax relief is a public priority,\u201d said Jubelirer. \u201cThe governor\u2019s push should give the issue momentum. It may be that we end up with a plan where property tax reductions are made available through both state and local funding, and we will insist that taxpayer protections are included so property taxes do not climb back up.\u201d
\nIn touting the legalization of slot machines, which is eventually projected to generate nearly $800 million a year in tax revenue, the governor said the state must act so it can recapture some of the $3 billion a year residents are currently gambling in other states.
\n\u201cPennsylvanians are voting with their feet,\u201d said Rendell. \u201cThey are leaving the commonwealth by the thousands to spend these dollars in our neighboring states and we get no benefit from it.\u201d
\nJubelirer continued his position on the slot machines.
\n\u201cI will not under any circumstances vote to support gambling expansion,\u201d said the senator.
\nThe governor plans to leverage $5 billion in private investment for various new and expanded economic development programs. In the proposal is $2 billion in state borrowing and loan guarantees.
\n\u201cThere shouldn\u2019t be much disagreement over the economic development proposals,\u201d said Jubelirer. \u201cGiven the nature of the economic weight struggles across the state, there is a need to increase our investment toward job creation, business development and infrastructure improvement and his recommendations look to make sense. There will probably be some concerns expressed about the level of borrowing to carry out these initiatives, but one way or another, we must properly finance key economic initiatives.\u201d
\nJubelirer adds that there are many issues he has heard of locally that aren\u2019t addressed in phase II of the Rendell plan.
\n\u201cDespite discussion of billions of dollars in added spending, nothing was said about restoring funding for things such as libraries, drug and alcohol treatment, science instruction and other areas cut substantially in the budget,\u201d said Jubelirer. \u201cBased on what I have heard locally since the governor presented his first budget, people in our area believe this money should be put back before new programs and new spending are undertaken.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his proposal to the State Legislature yesterday, Governor Ed Rendell proposed raising Pennsylvania\u2019s income tax by 34 percent to pay for fixing a property-tax system that the governor says is a \u201cstatewide disgrace.\u201d The proposed increase in the income tax will also help improve public education and stimulate job opportunities. The state senator representing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}