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Rendell on state tour to promote tax hike
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jun 17, 2009 04:55pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Rory Sweeney |
| Media | Newspaper - Wilkes-Barre Times Leader |
| News Date | Wednesday, June 17, 2009 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader
"Spending, by his own estimate, about $4,000 of taxpayers’ money, Gov. Ed Rendell flew around the state on Tuesday to promote an increase of one-half of 1 percent in the state income tax for three years and a simultaneous freeze in a 2.9 percent business tax to help bridge a projected $3.2 billion budget deficit.
“I’m sad to tell you that we simply can’t cut our way out of this problem,” he said during a stop at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport. “People aren’t going to escape a tax increase. They’re going to get a tax increase, and it’s going to be called a property tax increase.”
Rendell wants to increase the current 3.07 percent income tax to 3.57 percent to generate about $1.5 billion in revenue annually through fiscal year 2012. For households that make the state-median income of roughly $48,000, he said the increase would amount to about $5 a week.
“That’s less than a cup of coffee a day … and it goes away in three years, so I think it’s a good deal,” Rendell said.
Opponents, however, say Rendell, a Democrat, is turning the state toward the “big-government mentality of Washington,” according to U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Chester County. “We should be talking about how government can live within its means, cut spending, root out waste and find ways to get our economy moving again to create jobs – not raising taxes,” Gerlach stated in a news release.
Rendell likened the shortfall to the “heart-wrenching” predicaments of the very families he plans to further burden.
“Families have cut out luxuries, and now they’re cutting out necessities, and it’s just not enough,” he said. “And so it is in our state Capitol. We make cuts after cuts, and it’s still not enough. We’re struggling the same way that Pennsylvania families are.” |
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