Recent News on the Chester Upland Crisis
Pennsylvania budget crisis fixes can be found
Published: Tuesday, January 03, 2012, 5:15 AM
 By Patriot-News Op-Ed
By David R. Fillman
News that our commonwealth is confronting yet another budget crisis as we begin this year reminds me of the old cliche that lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
In the case of our state budget and a projected $500 million revenue shortfall, however, the issue is a lack of action in Harrisburg — not a deficit in planning.
The fact is that the Legislature and Gov. Corbett can choose from a wide array of viable, fiscally sound options for closing the projected deficit. The Corbett administration has the opportunity to make some long-overdue improvements to the state’s tax structure.
First, the math: Budget Secretary Charles Zogby tells us that halfway through this fiscal year, our revenue is roughly $345 million below projections. By June 30, the end of this fiscal year, we can expect revenue to be $500 million below forecast.
On top of that, Zogby forecasts roughly $800 million in additional costs next year that are unavoidable, such as pension costs and debt service. What does this mean? For starters, the administration will use the crisis to justify another round of budget cuts that stand to harm millions of our fellow citizens and our state as a whole. In fact, the budget secretary is already rounding up a list of $500 million in current-year cuts for the governor’s consideration.
If recent history is a lesson, public school students will suffer in larger classrooms with fewer teachers, fewer tutors and aides and less academic support overall. Families will have to dig deeper to pay for college, as funding cuts to our state and public universities will be targeted once again for deep cuts.
There will be fewer screenings for newborns; fewer nurses and aides tending to our parents and grandparents in nursing homes. Those with special needs, abused women and children will have less access to vital services.
We know about all of these impacts because we’re living with them right now in every community in our commonwealth. The current budget we are all living with was driven by sweeping budget cuts, including $860 million in education.
Already, battle lines are being drawn and the administration is once again reiterating the “no tax” pledge. That is regrettable because the CLEAR Coalition, among others, has identified a handful of overdue, common-sense proposals to generate more state revenue while creating a more fair and balanced tax structure.
What we now need is action on the following:
A fair excise tax on the big oil and big gas companies reaping hundreds of millions in revenue in the state’s Marcellus Shale. We remain the only significant gas-producing state without such a tax. A real tax would generate much-needed funds for the state and local communities most impacted by the natural gas boom.
An end to the gaping tax loophole that allows large national and international corporations to shift profits from Pennsylvania to Delaware. The Delaware loophole is great for major corporations, but it shifts the burden to tens of thousands of Pennsylvania-based businesses that follow the rules and pay their fair share of taxes. Closing this loophole would generate up to $550 million a year in new revenue and would create a more fair tax structure for all businesses and all Pennsylvanians.
Close a sales tax loophole that rewards companies for sending the sales taxes they collect from all of us to the state on time. For merely transferring money that belongs to the state treasury, these businesses earn a 1 percent discount. This fix would generate up to $74 million a year in new revenue.
These are just three fair, reasonable options that lawmakers and Gov. Corbett should embrace to close any budget gap and spare Pennsylvania families from more painful cuts.
David R. Fillman is executive director of AFSCME Council 13 and chair of the CLEAR Coalition.
© 2012 PennLive.com. All rights reserved.
Latest News
CLEAR's Statement on Governor Corbett's Education Proposal
CLEAR Supports HB1863, Rep. Murt and Rep. DiGirolamo's Marcellus Shale Tax Bill
CLEAR's Statement on Governor Corbett's Marcellus Shale Proposal
CLEAR's Statement on Governor Corbett's Advisory Council on Privatization and Innovation
Impacts of the 2011-12 State Budget Cuts
Working families across Pennsylvania are experiencing firsthand the impacts of the state budget cuts. We need your help to tell the story of how budget cuts are impacting you, your family and your community. Please send an e-mail with your story and photos of impacts of cuts to: info@clearforpa.org with subject line “IMPACT OF CUTS.”
As school children go back to school they will experience larger classes, fewer course offerings, and less opportunity for individualized instruction. As College students return to campus they will see tuition increases. Funding has been cut for food pantries, job training, and health care. These are just a few of the examples of the real cost of the budget cuts. Please share your story.
2011 State Budget Fails Pennsylvania’s Children, Senior Citizens, and Hard Working Families
Rally for a Responsible Budget!
Over 5,000 people stood up for a fair state budget on May 3rd, 2011! This was a historic day where thousands of working men and women came from across the state to stand together for a state budget.
Excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11131/1145525-192.stm#ixzz1M97OfHxM
Spend the surplus: How can Republicans let Pennsylvanians suffer?
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Now that the state appears on track to end the fiscal year June 30 with a $506 million surplus, Republicans in Harrisburg are getting tongue-tied.
They're tripping over their p's and q's, dotting their t's and crossing their i's, while fumbling to explain why some of the deepest cuts ever to hit state programs shouldn't be rolled back by half a billion dollars. Talk about English as a second language.
In a Post-Gazette story Saturday by Capitol Bureau Chief Tracie Mauriello, House Appropriations Chairman Bill Adolph, a Republican from Delaware County, said, "You can only spend a $500 million surplus once. We are doing our best not to spend any more than the tax revenues bring in."
Yet that's what the $506 million is, Rep. Adolph -- tax revenue.
House Republican caucus spokesman Steve Miskin said, "We can't fall back into the old habits of spending just because we have the money."
If you can't spend when you do have money, Mr. Miskin, when do you spend -- when you don't have money?
When Gov. Tom Corbett unveiled his $27.3 billion budget in March, he acknowledged it was a tough response to a steep deficit, about $4 billion, projected for 2011-12. Since he had promised not to raise taxes, he called for deep slashes in spending: $500 million less for basic education, a $110 million reduction for Pitt, a $182 million cut for Penn State, 54 percent less for the 14 state-owned universities. He allowed adultBasic, which helped the working poor afford health insurance, to expire, saying it lacked a funding solution.
These cutbacks were put forth when the Corbett administration anticipated a $78 million surplus. Now the actual excess funds look to be six times as large, with much of it already in hand.
How Mr. Corbett and other Republican leaders can sock it into the bank while their budget triggers layoffs, tuition hikes and property tax increases shocks the conscience. No wonder they lack the words to explain why a half-billion dollars should be held in reserve while Pennsylvanians suffer.
The slowly reviving economy may be delivering the kind of tax proceeds once familiar to Pennsylvanians. While $506 million is not enough to erase the deficit, it would be the height of political callousness not to let it blunt the pain of the Corbett budget cuts.
First published on May 11, 2011 at 12:00 am
Public Education
Unproven, unaccountable voucher plan could cost taxpayers $1 billion
Vouchers do not save tax dollars. They increase costs to taxpayers, while draining resources from the students who need them most. At a time when the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s own study shows that the state’s public schools are under funded by $4 billion, private school vouchers are an experiment we can’t afford.
For more information please go to http://www.psea.org
Protect Our Public Assets
At a time when the Commonwealth faces a $4 billion budget deficit, privatizing our wine and spirit stores, roads and public education and is short-sighted, costly and irresponsible.
Wine and Sprit Shops
A $2 billion MYTH vs.
$500 million in HARD CASH every year!
Rep. Mike Turzai thinks he can raise $2 billion by selling the Wine and Spirits Stores. He bases this on bad numbers from the 1997 failed privatization scheme and even worse math by the privateers pushing the sale now.
Price Waterhouse originally said that a sale in 1997 would raise $600 million, but then conceded that the Ridge Administration had provided faulty numbers. The firm reversed itself and said the sale would raise less than HALF of this amount.
Now, to get $2 billion, Turzai wants to sell 850 retail and wholesale licenses a $2.3 million average – a figure achieved nowhere in the U.S. for similar licenses. For example, New Jersey’s average license sells for less than $250,000.
$500 Million Facts:
Wine and Spirits store revenue for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania more than doubled from $233 million in 1996 to $513 million in fiscal year 2009, far outpacing Price Waterhouse’s projections.
This money comes from store profits and sales taxes.
PA’s Wine and Spirits stores guarantee 100 percent that all taxes are collected at the point of sale – a record unmatched in the private sector.
A privatization scheme would jeopardize more than $500 million year-in and year-out, potentially leading to higher taxes because lawmakers would have to make up for this revenue loss.
Tell your legislator to get the facts, and not believe the myth, before voting to sell this valuable state asset.
For more information please go to http://ufcw1776.org
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