The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allows about 1,000 bald eagles to be killed a year by windfarms. They want to quadruple it.
GOP Leadership Wants Tax Hikes
GOP Leadership Wants Tax Hikes
By Leo Knepper
Not much has changed on the budget since last week. On the plus side, Governor Wolf changed his position on using fund transfers to balance the budget. He went from saying all of the money proposed in the fund transfers (see here) was promised to other projects and there was no way it could be used to balance the budget; his current position is that $500 million is available to use to balance the budget.
On the downside, Republican leadership in both chambers of the General Assembly seem dead-set on making Pennsylvania less competitive by raising taxes on targeted industries. The first target, which now seems to be off the table, was commercial warehousing. According our sources, Rep. Dave Reed (R-Indiana County) was advocated for making lease payments on warehouse space subject to the sales tax. The fact that this tax would have made Pennsylvania non-competitive and put thousands of people out of work seems to have eliminated this proposal from consideration. The latest proposal would be to nearly double the Commonwealth’s hotel tax rate. Again, one of the chief advocates for the higher tax rate is Rep. Dave Reed.
As we have repeatedly noted, a better long-term solution would be to actually cut spending rather robbing from Peter to pay Paul. We’ll let you know about any changes as they develop.
Politicians have long used Orwellian double-speak to hide their true intentions. The latest iteration of this trend in Pennsylvania is the Governor’s, Senate’s and House Democrat’s insistence on including “recurring revenue” in any budget agreement. Recurring revenue sounds much more pleasant than what they’re really talking about: tax increases.
Roughly three months ago Republican leadership in the Senate, ceded their super-majority when fourteen Republicans voted with twelve Democrats to pass a Fiscal Code that balanced the budget on the backs of taxpayers. The Senate’s plan, supported by Governor Wolf, would raise taxes on heating bills, cell phone bills, and online purchases. As our friends at the Commonwealth Foundation noted in a recent blog post, the General Assembly has raised taxes four times in the last eight years. These previous tax hikes haven’t solved Pennsylvania’s financial problems. Instead, it has been like a death from a thousand cuts for taxpayers.
Departing from the usual routine of raising taxes, House Republicans offered alternatives to the status quo. The first plan we told you about would have reduced overhead expenses and saved tax payers $370 million. A second plan, which ultimately passed the House would have used surplus, off-budget funds to fill the gap. Unfortunately, only seven Senators sided with taxpayers and voted in favor of using funds already in state coffers.
The next step in the budget process is House and Senate leadership will establish a conference committee and try to work out their differences. The deals hashed out by conference committees rarely work out in taxpayer’s favor because it is a closed-door process. The public, and most lawmakers, usually do not have time to review the finished product. Remember the 2005 middle-of-the night pay raise? That legislation came out of a conference committee too.
Please, take a few moments and email the General Assembly. Let them know that you will be watching their actions closely and that they need to cut spending and use money already collected by the Treasury in order to balance the budget.
Mr. Knepper is executive director of Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania.
GOP Leadership Wants Tax Hikes
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 10-4-17
You are probably aware that Abner Doubleday invented baseball. Did you know, however, that he attended West Point, and as captain of artillery at Fort Sumter fired the first Union shot of the Civil War.
–William Lawrence Sr.
William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 10-3-17
Ever hear of Dr. John S. Pemberton? He invented Coca Cola.
–William Lawrence Sr.
Freedom’s Price, Safety’s Danger
Freedom’s Price, Safety’s Danger — Sunday night’s massacre in Las Vegas — which as of this writing (Oct. 3) has left 59 dead and more than 500 injured — is providing fodder for the politically ambitious. More gun control is needed, they say. More restrictions on movement and convenience will keep us safe they say.
Of course, they couldn’t be more wrong.
Even now the motivations of murderer Stephen Craig Paddock are trying to be determined. Federal authorities have not found a terrorism connection despite the claims of ISIS. The best guess now is that he was a calculating psychopath akin to Andrew Kehoe, the middle-aged school board treasurer and community leader who spent months planting dynamite throughout the Bath Consolidated School, killing 45 including 36 children when he set off the explosives in 1927.
People like this are no different than hurricanes and earthquakes. Putting ink on paper in the form of new laws won’t stop them. They can’t be stopped. They hide among us as pillars of the community — Paddock was an accountant — without giving a hint as to what’s inside them constantly considering a community’s weak points. They exist in every society even totalitarian ones.
Actually, they end up running the totalitarian ones and it’s living in fear to the point one is willing to surrender freedom that puts them in charge.
While they can’t be stopped, preparations can be taken. Just as supplies can be stored for hurricanes, sane, law-abiding citizens can be encouraged to know how to defend themselves for psychopaths. This means having a gun.
And our culture can be made into one where life is revered and the ethic of protecting the weak and helpless is paramount.
It wouldn’t have made a difference Sunday but it is worth noting the correlation between school shootings and the legalization of abortion.
Freedom’s Price, Safety’s Danger
William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 10-2-17
You never heard of Clement Wragge? Most folks haven’t. He was a 19th Australian weatherman who is credited with naming hurricanes. He preferred Biblical names like Sacar, Talmon and Uphaz.
–William Lawrence Sr.
William Lawrence Sr. Omnibit 9-30-17
The Celts were renowned for their chariots except they called them karros.
And that is from where we get the word “car”.
–William Lawrence Sr.
Anti-Vote Fraud Bill Advances; Charlton, Bucks Reps Nays
Anti-Vote Fraud Bill Advances Or Alex Charlton, What’s Up? — A commonsense anti-vote-fraud bill overwhelming passed the Pennsylvania House, Sept. 26, and is now before the state Senate.
The bill no longer restricts poll watchers to their county of registration allowing them to monitor anywhere in the Commonwealth.
The vote was 106 to 91. Naturally, every fraud-dependent Democrat present — three weren’t there — voted against it, but strangely so did 13 Republicans including Alex Charlton of Springfield (165), James Santora of Drexel Hill (163); and Bucks County reps Gene DiGirolamo (18), Bernie O’Neill (29), Marguerite Quinn (143), Craig T. Staats (143), Katharine M. Watson (144) and Scott Petri (178).
So what’s up with that Alex Charlton? More interestingly what’s up with that Bucks County? What all do you have to be afraid of?
Anti-Vote Fraud Bill Advances Or Alex Charlton, What’s Up?
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 9-29-17
It was Mary Kay Miesmer who said if all grandchildren grew up to meet their expectations the world would be inhabited by geniuses.
— William Lawrence Sr.
Wolf Unglued By Scott Wagner
Wolf Unglued By Scott Wagner — Ed. note: We find any accusation of racism that Gov. Wolf makes to be disgustingly ironic.
By Scott Wagner
Last Sunday I attended an event in St. Louis, and I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Steve Bannon. And oh boy, the liberals have come completely unglued, especially Tom Wolf.
The Governor was so unnerved, that he scampered right over to his computer and “cried racist” — again. This time in an email to supporters.
Let’s call this exactly what it is: a classic liberal distraction. He wants to change the focus — and who can blame him?
If I was Governor Wolf, I’d want to change the focus, too.
If I was Tom Wolf, I’d want to talk about anything other than his inability to balance a budget — which has earned him his second credit downgrade since he took office, and left local governments scrambling for the funds they need to operate.
There are many things Governor Wolf would rather not discuss.
Where does a broke, big-spending governor, with bad credit and no conscience look for more money? If you guessed your wallet, you guessed right.
Tom Wolf would prefer not to get into those details.
I’m on a mission to get rid of career politicians that attach themselves to government and drain the wallets of hard working Pennsylvanians. I see a new day for the citizens of this commonwealth and an end to epic mismanagement, waste, fraud and abuse.
My mission makes Tom Wolf extremely uncomfortable.
He sees the freight train coming. Of course he’s alarmed. Of course he cries “racist.”
Tom Wolf can call me whatever he wants — until we defeat him in November of 2018.
Sen. Wagner represents the 28th District in the Pennsylvania Senate.