Wolf’s message silent on property tax reform
Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget address covered many topics, but he was silent on a big issue that’s of paramount importance to many Times News readers — school property tax reform.
There has been a lot of hype on this topic so far in 2020, but the $64,000 question is whether state Sens. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, Mario Scavello, R-Monroe and Northampton, Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, and Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill and Carbon, along with others, can bring home the bacon.
There was a massive rally early this month in Harrisburg attended by many of the legislators representing the five-county Times News area, and, to a person, they were united in the call to get rid of this “unfair tax.”
Call me a skeptic, but I just don’t see it in an election year where all 203 seats in the state House of Representatives and 25 of the 50 seats in the state Senate are on the ballot. In addition, it’s a presidential election and one in which all 435 congressional seats (including 18 in Pennsylvania) will be contested.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed Wolf’s conspicuous omission. “I was frustrated that the governor did not mention the problem of school property taxes in his address,” Scavello said in a statement.
“No matter how hard we try, property tax elimination is not going to happen without Gov. Wolf taking a leadership role, or at the very least acknowledging the dire situation this tax has caused for millions of Pennsylvanians,” Scavello added.
All three of our local senators, along with other supporters in hard-hit areas of northeastern Pennsylvania, have rendered gut-wrenching reports of constituents who have either lost their homes or are in dire straits because of seemingly never-ending increases in school taxes.
“For me to have to listen to the heartbreaking stories of constituents — including a senior who told me, ‘I’m guilty of living too long’ — and continue to not hear the governor say one word about it, is extremely frustrating. It’s about time we take care of our seniors, but his silence is deafening,” Scavello said.
Of course, the governor and his aides take exception to Scavello’s painting the democratic chief executive as the big, bad wolf, a heartless creature who has no compassion for impoverished senior citizens, and they are quick to point out the many programs he has championed on behalf of those Scavello claims are hanging on by a thread.
Scavello has introduced Senate Bill 805, which would scrap the school property tax to be replaced by an addition of 1.8% to the state income tax, currently at 3.07%.
There are competing bills, because Argall reintroduced his failed bill and oversaw a bipartisan study commission which advanced five options several months ago on how to deal with either partially or completely eliminating the school property tax.
Argall’s bill that called for a constitutional amendment nearly won approval in the 2017-18 session. A tie vote among senators was broken by then-Lt. Gov. Mike Stack, a Democrat, who voted “no,” so it was back to square one.
“At the Feb. 3 rally, Rep. Heffley, Sen. Scavello and I spoke to hundreds of people from all over Pennsylvania who share this common goal: We want to see this rotten school property tax eliminated. We need to find a better way to fund our public schools than an archaic and unfair tax structure from the 1600s,” Argall was quoted as saying.
Heffley said he favors Argall’s Senate Bill 76, the one narrowly defeated in the previous legislative session. Argall reintroduced it last February, and it was assigned to the Finance Committee. It calls for an increase in the personal income tax from 3.07 to 4.95%, upping the state sales tax from 6 to 7% and broadening the goods and services that would be subject to the tax.
Argall said that he is flexible. “I am open to any suggestions to eliminate unfair and archaic school property taxes,” he said in reply to my request for comment. “My strong preference, based on considerable input from the people I represent in Schuylkill and Berks counties, is the complete elimination of all school property taxes. I have voted with my good friend Sen. Scavello to do this several times in the past, and I will continue to do so.”
Any attempt to tinker with the school property tax is vehemently opposed by high-powered lobby groups, especially the state Chamber of Commerce and some of its constituent organizations. While they are in favor of tax relief, they believe Argall’s bill will create more problems than it will solve. What’s clear to me is that the math needs to add up, and many questions and guarantees need to be put on the table if this difficult change is ever going to get traction.
By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com
Comments
Reforming the way the government training camps extort their funds seems to go nowhere. Good sounding talking point every four years, I'll give em that.
Because the socialist teachers union musters up lot's of money to see things remain as is.
Please provide significant evidence that would lead any sane person to buy in to the GOP as being a (Nazi regime).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Democrats now the party of socialism/communism?
Crazy Bernie is a communist.
BTW, I'm a TEA Party member. You should check out TEA.. Taxed Enough Already.
But here's a video for starts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDeXhmTz_0M
Do some research. Many teachers bought in to socialism when they attended the colleges.
Look up John Dewey the father of modern education. Dewey was a Fabian. There's much to find and the folks no longer have to hide their communist lean.
Now please stop using the term Nazi. When you do that, you marginalize what actually took place under the Nazi Regime.
The GOP isn't a Nazi Regime.
I'm done answering questions to Johnny, the agitating idiot.
You don't even understand yourself.
Levite, how many public school teachers are not a member of the union? All of them are. If your intention was not to paint teachers with a broad brush then maybe you should be specific about who in the union are the socialists.
Not all teachers join, and they don't have to join.
They were at one time require to pay the union bosses extortion, but not anymore.
Now what does that say about teachers? If given the option, why would you still join and pay? Fear? Afraid of retribution? Wait, in our public schools? Union thuggery?
You Bet!
Stop it Joe. It's the Holy Spirit who brings on conviction, not Joe... least that's how I read it.
How comes the teachers raise isn't based on performance? Mine is.
Why do the Pennsylvania teachers continue to pay dues to the union?
Maybe a teacher will offer their view?
Argall should understand that wolf did not campaign on a platform of property tax elimination so he isn’t going to “lead” the effort. His opponent made tax elimination his center piece and lost by a historic margin. Time for these tax elimination folks to get the picture that there is not enough public support for these bills
I don't want to fund LGBT acceptance programs, funded by the CDC (more tax funding), which encourages all this gender disphoria. Don't use my money to sexualize the 8 year olds.
I also oppose footing the bill for all these sport programs.
I don't want to fund the Green Initiative BS being taught as truth.
Where does this embrace of socialism come from? I don't want to fund it.
I don't want fund the liberal educator's bias that is Transforming America.
I no longer want my taxes going to teachers, who pay dues to a union, and contribute to PACs, that support politicians who come against me.
The NEA, reported teachers donated to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a margin of 10 to 1.
By way of unions, my money comes back at me, and demands I fund that which I don't desire to support. If I don't fund it (property tax), they take my house. And, if the teachers don't get their way? They STRIKE! A good lesson in how to BULLY!
Not all teachers are liberal minded? Well why don't those who disagree, those like minded with me speak up? FEAR! The union thugs will get them.
Teachers of the world unite! Common Core! Common Core! Common Core!
I'm tired of paying for this circus.
Your characterization of what is taught in school has no basis in reality and I challenge you to show me actual curriculum that proves your assertion. But let’s examine your assertion that we should not be accepting of LGBTQ individuals. Are you suggesting we stone them? Arrest them? Send them to camps? Encourage bullying of them? What is your alternative to acceptance?
As for the sex of a person? You are male or female. What ever your sexual preference is, keep it to yourself.
I never asserted that we "should not be accepting of LGBTQ individuals."
You are an agitating man, one who loves to create strife. Diablo! Legion, is that you?
And why should they keep their "preference" to themselves? Explain
AFL-CIO Richard Trumka with other labor bigwigs, logged into the White House Visitors log many times during the Obama years. Trumka met privately with Obama and once with Vice President Joe Biden. Bought and sold influence through union dues money.
And again, if you don't like PACS, vote out trump
Go off in some corner and take care of that Johnny. Let the adults continue in the issue at hand... no not that Johnny... Property Taxes. Put that thing away Johnny... BGood
I see a property tax as being an unfair tax, thus making it unconstitutional.
But, I'll continue to rent my house from the district.
Start doing research on where this socialism will get us. As for now, I consider anyone who supports socialism/communism, an enemy of the state. You want to tear down what we have. It ain't happening. If you support the Socialist Democrats, you are on the wrong side of history. Trump may be an orange faced tweeting jerk, but he's respecting of the constitution.
His policies are also working out pretty darn well.