Category: Montco

Cut Cost First, Thank You Joe Gale

Cut Cost First

By Leo Knepper

Last year the CAP PAC made its first major foray into county politics and it just paid dividends for residents of Montgomery County. In his race for Commissioner, Joe Gale ran as an unabashed conservative. Earlier this week Commissioner Gale took a vocal stand for those principles and saved his constituents $3.5 million.

Due to a law passed in 2013, Pennsylvania currently has the highest gasoline taxes in the country. That same law contained a provision allowing counties to enact a $5 registration fee for vehicles. Seeing an easy source of revenue, Gale’s Democratic colleagues were set to extract more money from Montgomery County taxpayers. That plan was derailed when Joe brought media attention to the pending vote. Unlike his Republican predecessor, who would “go along to get along”, Gale went to the public to make sure they were aware of the tax increase.

Cut Cost First, Thank You Joe Gale
Joe Gale actually fights for the citizens.

There is a great deal of similarity between what is happening in Montgomery County, and what typically happens in Harrisburg. Rather than looking at how to save money, elected officials enact a new fee or tax and take the money from their constituents. In this instance, the $5 per vehicle fee would purportedly go to “infrastructure” projects. While infrastructure is arguably one of the few legitimate services government should provide, taxpayers are not getting the most for their money.

As Commissioner Gale points out, and we have been talking about for years, infrastructure and other construction projects are subject to wage controls that force taxpayers to overpay for labor. These wage controls come in two basic types, an artificially calculated “prevailing wage” and project labor agreements (PLA’s). Both of these wage controls benefit organized labor and PLA’s also exclude nonunion contractors from the bidding process.

Eliminating prevailing wage and PLA’s would drastically decrease the cost of public projects and make tax dollars go much further. However, it is politically easier for elected officials to take more money from taxpayers than it is to take on organized labor.

We applaud Gale’s willingness to stand up for taxpayers. His actions tell us that the CAP PAC made a good investment in his candidacy.

Mr. Knepper is executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania.

Cut Cost First, Thank You Joe Gale

Republican Values Mean Boom For All

Republican Values Mean Boom For All — The Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewood Patch earlier this month attributed an economic boom in Montgomery County to tax-subsidized development in Lower Merion.

Retired businessman Bob Guzzardi points out in the below article that the growth in Montco is not coming from government-funded projects in Democrat Lower Merion but from free market policies in Republican-controlled King of Prussia, Hatfield and Lower Moreland.

Republican Values Mean Boom For AllBy Bob Guzzardi

Do Republican values and Republican governance lead to prosperity for all as well as more taxes to pay for necessary government services and infrastructure? Empirically, the real world says  “yes”. King of Prussia, Hatfield and Lower Moreland are governed by Republicans and they are growing.

I would think that Republican officeholders and those seeking office would want to make the case that Republicans governance means a higher standard of living.

It would seem to me that Republicans would be promoting themselves as the party of growth providing jobs with industrial projects and shopping centers/malls and which generate the tax revenue to build and maintain infrastructure and finance necessary government services.

Upper Merion is Republican, is it not? And the fastest growing municipality in MontCo, it seems.  Hatfield is Republican, is it not?  How many of these projects are built by free market, competitive contractors, that is, non-union contractors.

Of the 4,089 proposed units, how many were in Republican municipalities?  My point is to make the case that in the real world, it can be empirically verified that Republican values work.  Democratic Lower Merion is in decline; Republican Upper Merion and King of Prussia are growing raising their standard of living for everyone and creating jobs. So is Lower Moreland and Hatfield.

One of Lower Merion’s biggest projects, the Dranoff project, had to be subsidized and unionized.!

Democrats escaped Democratic (and union controlled) Philadelphia to Republican Lower Merion and, instead of embracing Republican ideas, they imposed a regime of more taxes, more spending and more debt. Lower Merion is in decline.  It is shabby and down scale.

Republican Values Mean Boom For All

Montco Favorites Nominees Sought

Montco Favorites Nominees SoughtMontco Favorites Nominees Sought — Montco resident? Here’s a chance to nominate your favorite Montgomery County person, place, business or event at Montco Happening.

Nomination for the 3rd Annual Happening List® competition  opened on Jan. 4. The voting starts Jan. 15.

Information can be found here.

Montco Favorites Nominees Sought

Montco Dem Activist Allegedly Took Boy’s Photo In Restroom

Montco Dem Activist Allegedly Took Boy’s Photo In Restroom — A Lansdale man has been charged  by Orange County, Fla.,  with one count of felony video voyeurism against a child younger than 16 years of age for taking a photo of a young boy in a restroom stall at Walt Disney World on Aug. 2
The charge was duly reported by NBC10. Certain things, however, were left out that one is confident would otherwise would not have been if things had not been just a tad different — namely his political affiliation.

The accused, Joseph M. Cionzynski, 59, you see, is active with Friends of Lansdale, a left-leaning political action committee that supported the Democratic Party establishment against a couple of of party mavericks, according to RedState.com, which notes that he is also works for the National Labor Relations Board.

Cionzynski allegedly placed his cell phone under the stall and took several photographs of the boy, age 8, who was sitting on the toilet. The boy saw what was occurring and ran from the room crying. He got his mother and the two re-entered the room where the boy was able to identify Cionzynski by his shoes.

Cionzynski voluntarily turned the phone over to a sheriff’s deputy who did not find pictures of the child but did find two pictures of adult genitalia. The phone was seized  and Cionzynski was given a trespass warning but not arrested.  Investigators later found pictures of the boy, however, according to BayNews9.com.

An arrest warrant was issued Aug.15 and Cionzynski was arrested in Montco for extradition.

Wonder where Cionzynski stands on gay marriage? You think he might have supported D. Bruce Hanes for Montgomery County Register of Wills?

Hat tip Rights-right.com


Chris Matthews’ Baby Bro Faces Perjury Charges

Chris Matthews’ Baby Bro Faces Perjury Charges — The not-really-conservative Republican brother of Obama-zombie MSNBC commentator Chris “Tingles” Matthews has been arrested and charged with perjury.

James R. Matthews, 62, the lame-duck chairman of the Montgomery County (Pa.) board of commissioners, allegedly lied to a county grand jury investigating corruption when he denied that Keenan Mortgage Co., which he owns, had not done business since 1995 with Certified Abstract Co., which was awarded a contract in 2010 to provide title insurance services with the county.

It was learned that Keegan Mortgage
had done business exclusively with Certified since early 2010, said the grand jury.

Matthews ran unsuccessfully as the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006.

Matthews was censored by the county GOP  in 2007 when he entered into a power-sharing agreement with Democrat commissioner Joe Hoeffel 3rd cutting out fellow Republican Bruce Castor and giving the Dems effective control of the county.

Matthews declined to seek re-election to his commissioner seat in 2011.

 

Chris Matthews’ Baby Bro Faces Perjury Charges