No Representation for Increased Taxation
Pennsylvania faces a current-year budget deficit of over $2 billion dollars!
Years of irresponsible state government spending have created a budgetary problem that, by far, surpasses the infamous 1991 budget deficit. The 1991 deficit was used as an excuse by tax and spend liberals to raise taxes by $2.85 billion, reported as the largest tax increase in Pennsylvania’s history.
January 6, 2009 marked our first voting session day of this new two-year legislative session.
One of the first day’s votes was to elect a new speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Members of the Democratic majority (104 Democrats to 99 Republicans) nominated one of their own from eastern Pennsylvania as a candidate for Speaker. As of January 1, 2009 the Republicans still had no candidate for the Speaker’s race. On January 2, 2009, I announced my candidacy for Speaker to provide an alternative to the tax and spend liberal nominated by the Democratic caucus. I seized the opportunity of the first substantive vote of the year to speak up for Pennsylvania taxpayers.
In the conclusion of my Speaker candidacy announcement, I stated:
“I pledge that I will fully execute my duties to maximize the Office of Speaker to its full potential as a voice for the people of Pennsylvania. A voice that will be consistent in the battle to reform and revitalize this legislature into a respected public servant that represents our citizens with integrity; a voice that will accept nothing less than fiscally-responsible state government; and, most importantly a voice rallying against any and all proposed tax increases.”
Then, on January 27, 2009, in the continued fight for fiscally-responsible government, I led a Taxpayer’s First press conference to pre-empt the Governor’s expected budget address scheduled in early February. I was joined by more than a dozen fiscally-conservative House Republicans to roll out several government-limiting solutions that are designed to put Pennsylvania Taxpayers First.
Some of the Taxpayers First protections outlined at the press conference were:
- Implementing constitutional or statutory Spending Limits.
- Eliminating all state discretionary funding or “Walking Around Money” (WAMs).
- Reducing the state Personal Income Tax to the pre-Rendell level of 2.8 percent.
- Repealing Pennsylvania’s prevailing wage mandate and tolling of Interstate 80 (Act 44 of 2007).
- Reducing the overall economic burden on Pennsylvania’s job creators by completing the phase-out of the Capital Stock and Franchise Tax and making Pennsylvania’s Corporate Net Income Tax (CNI) more competitive with other states.
- Eliminating excessive regulations that create expensive overhead costs for businesses and kill jobs.
- Providing voters with the authority, through voter referendum, to say yes or no to local property tax increases with the only exception for emergency health or safety reasons.
- Finally, enacting a 2009-2010 state budget that contains no new taxes, no new spending and no new borrowing.
The recent history-making headlines of financial institution bailouts, automobile manufacturer bailouts to the governor’s Boscov’s department store bailout scheme have left Pennsylvania taxpayers legitimately perplexed and dismayed at the reality disconnect by their government.
The life changing sacrifices being made by men, women, and children across the Commonwealth demands that the 2009-2010 state Legislature puts Pennsylvania Taxpayers First by providing no representation for increased taxation.
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