Taxpayers' Protest Answers Rendell Spend-a-holics & Special Interests
The June 30 state budget deadline is ignored once again by a Governor who has little respect for the law or the people he was elected to serve. Rendell has not completed a budget on time since he became Governor in 2003.
The state budget deficit estimate is expected to be $3.2 billion as we end the state’s fiscal year on June 30, 2009. The Governor has claimed that he has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget. The truth is that Rendell has proposed to spend $29 billion this year, compared to a $28.3 billion budget last year. He has increased spending, not reduced spending.
During a recent visit to Butler County, the Governor announced his plan to increase the personal income tax. Continuing his insatiable appetite for our tax dollars, he has also proposed to create new taxes on natural gas extraction and smokeless tobacco. To ensure that his fellow tax and spend county commissioners have more to spend, he has also proposed allowing counties to increase our sales tax by 1%. They are trying to sell it as a way to reduce property taxes when in fact only 60% of the increase will go to property tax reduction. The remaining 40% of the increased taxes will be used for additional spending!
As a continuation of my Taxpayers First initiatives, I worked with staff and concerned citizens to organize the first ever Pennsylvania State Capitol Taxpayers’ Protest on June 9, 2009. The press conference portion of the protest included speakers representing the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens against Higher Taxes and many others.
Every year during budget time, the halls of the capitol are normally filled with special interests who are requesting more from taxpayers. This year was the first time since I have been in Harrisburg that taxpayers from across the state travelled to the capitol to visit legislators and deliver a message for reducing government spending and passing a responsible budget with no tax increases.
Rendell’s main accomplices in his efforts to increase taxes are the Democrat leadership in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. The PA Senate passed a budget bill with no tax increases which was sent to the House, but the Democrat leadership has refused to allow a budget bill to come before the House for debate. I signed onto a discharge resolution with the majority of my Republican colleagues in the House in an effort to bring a budget bill to the floor for debate.
I was told by a couple of my colleagues that one of the Democrat leaders has asked if the Republicans have “needs,” in an attempt to open dialogue on how their votes can be bought for tax increases. Legislative leaders and Governors using our tax dollars to make promises of tax dollars for individual legislators’ pet projects, in order to gain the legislator’s vote, has been one of the corrupt practices in the legislature. I have cosponsored legislation that would make this type of corrupt activity illegal.
I will continue the fight to protect taxpayers in Harrisburg.
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