Kill the property tax and see Pa. prosper

The following is an open letter to the state Senate:

The state House of Representatives passed the Stop Primary Residence Protection Plan to completely abolish the corrupt property tax. It now sits in the Senate waiting for cowardly senators to act on it and put it out for the sheeple to vote on it. Below is the answer to Pennsylvania’s financial crisis.

Would a $24 billion infusion of economic activity (at no cost to government on any level) boost Pennsylvania’s stagnant economy?

There is $8 billion sitting idly in tax escrow accounts in banks all over Pennsylvania. Banks pay no interest on the $8 billion, so this idle money gains the depositor (homeowner with a mortgage) absolutely nothing.

Banks cannot lend the money, so it generates no economic activity in the marketplace; and banks don’t benefit either. It just idly sits there waiting until yearly property taxes are due on homes. Then the banks forward the money to the counties, school districts and municipal governments.

Economists say money reverberates through our economy multiple times. We used three times (a very conservative estimate) to arrive at the $24 billion in economic activity that would be occur if the $8 billion in tax escrow accounts was no longer required from those with home mortgages.

If there were no property tax escrow accounts, home owners with mortgages would pay only the principal and interest on their mortgage plus homeowners insurance, cutting their monthly “house” payment by multiple hundreds of dollars.

More people could keep their homes.

More people could buy homes greatly boosting the housing market. More people would improve their homes.

More young people would establish their home for their families in Pennsylvania rather than some other state

More seniors (retirees) would remain here, keeping their accumulated wealth here, too.

Greater population would attract more businesses to serve them.

Tens of thousands of permanent jobs would be created in the private sector with no need for governmentally funded, so-called “job creation” programs. Make-work governmentally induced jobs are often temporary — lasting only until the federal or state funding is no longer forthcoming.

More people working, plus more businesses, equals more tax revenue for schools, counties and municipalities.

More people able to purchase homes means revitalization of our suffering municipalities.

No more sheriff sales for “delinquent” property taxes currently based on phony, corrupt assessment figures stealing the homes and most, or all of the equity of 30,000+ Pennsylvania home owners every year.

No more countywide reassessments, which cost Pennsylvania taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Smaller government, since every county’s property tax assessment offices could be cut dramatically, saving taxpayers tens of millions across the state.

No more harassment of homeowners since there would be no more reassessment hearings.

The Lottery-Funded Property Tax Rebate program could be abolished, saving the lottery over $60 million per year, which could be used to provide more seniors with PACE coverage, or expanded Rent Rebates.

True home ownership would come to Pennsylvanians for the first time in our history, since we currently, in effect, only “rent” our homes from the counties, municipalities and school districts. Private property ownership rights is a basic component of our freedom.

How could this dream become a reality? First, if anyone tells you it can’t work, they are either misinformed or lying. They need only to check with the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, which studied the STOP Primary Residence Protection plan and found abolishing all three property taxes on primary residences (homesteads/farmsteads) is fiscally sound and economically viable.

Schools, counties and municipalities would be fully funded with replacement revenue for the lost property tax revenue. Increased economic activity would mean even more revenue for the county and municipal governments and school districts than they are currently receiving.

During the eight years of Gov. Ed Rendell’s reign of error, 240,000-plus Pennsylvania families lost their homes and equity and he couldn’t have cared less. Will Gov. Tom Corbett be any better? Let’s hope and pray he will.


By Dom Lauro Upper Darby PA

PA School Voucher Legislation Just Another Big Government Entitlement Program?

Senate Bill 1 is being sold by Sens. Jeffrey Piccola and Anthony Williams as the "civil rights movement" of the 21st century. But their solution — create another government agency to oversee implementation of an untested voucher program limited to a small percentage of the low-income population — leaves the middle class behind.

The program would cause a reactionary increase in non-public school costs, resulting in bloated and more expensive private education. There would be no restraint and no incentive for non-public schools to leave money on the table, especially for opportunists who see private schools as investments using taxpayer money. It would be vulnerable to lobbyists and special interest groups. Vouchers would likely increase, resulting in greater intrusion into the private sector with a potential to regulate and restrain participating non-public schools. A recent CATO Institute study revealed that vouchers, not tax credits, impose a significant, additional regulatory burden on participating private schools.

SB1 would increase the successful Educational Improvement Tax Credit, where businesses contribute to scholarship organizations in exchange for a tax credit. EITC is currently law and does not belong in SB1. It is the proverbial carrot dangling to entice the middle class to support the bill. Instead of another entitlement program that would serve as a mechanism for big government, we support:

•Expansion of EITC, which saved taxpayers more than $531 million in 2007-08 and benefited more than 44,000 students.

•Personal income tax credits for contributions to scholarship organizations and for educational expenses, offsetting private school tuition and home-school expenses.

•Educational savings accounts, where the state would contribute funds in exchange for parents agreeing not to enroll children in public schools. Parents could use the account for a wide range of educational services, including alternative schools and higher education. Furthermore, parents could contribute to an account tax free and withdraw money without tax penalties.

•Interdistrict (public school to public school) education, with guidelines to not limit spaces for incoming residents and to address the issue of participating vs. non-participating public schools.

If vouchers become law, we highly recommend a sliding scale for transparency and accountability based on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute report, "When Private Schools Take Public Dollars." The more vouchers a school receives, the more transparency and higher accountability are needed. This would prevent "educrats" and greedy philanthropists from creating private schools and managing charter schools simply to make a profit and not be held accountable.

UNITEPA supports academic freedom for all parents and guardians, not just a small percentage. The voucher program lends itself to another failed government program, whose tentacles would reach far into the non-public school system.

We have a tremendous opportunity to pass a constitutional, principled bill for school choice to offer an equal opportunity for all Pennsylvanians. However, SB1 is not about school choice. It is a political attempt to disrupt the union stranglehold on schools while promoting an unconstitutional quick fix for failing schools. We hope our legislators develop a more inclusive and fair bill and/or amendments to SB1.

Sharon Cherubin is executive director of UNITEPA of Lancaster County.

Free at last

Guest Column By Albert Paschall

What is the most institutionalized system of discrimination in this state? Criminal justice, corrections and prisons or our public schools?

While a case could be made for all three, and they are connected, the public school systems wins hands down as the system that suppresses the hopes and dreams of African Americans and Latinos especially in Pennsylvania's larger cities.

In a recent speech, Philadelphia's new District Attorney Seth Williams, Jr. announced a startling statistic: on average only 43% of that city's school children graduate from high school. Called disaffected by social workers, society calls them drop outs. The economic contrasts are enormous. According to an organization called 'Youth United for Change' the average drop out will earn $475,000 over his or her lifetime, the average college graduate $2 million.

A press celebrated Bucks County High School teacher wrote on her blog about how some of her students would be qualified "when the trash trucks were hiring." Why work on a trash truck when selling drugs or robbery pays a lot more money?

That's the correlation, the child left behind in an inner-city school that drops out before graduation is far more likely to be incarcerated. As a taxpayer would you be more likely to spend $20,000 a year to keep a young person in prison, with little chance of a good job after they get out or $20,000 a year to send them to Penn State to become productive citizens? Both cost about the same.

The reasons for the collapse of urban public education in Pennsylvania are myriad. It starts in 1976 with Jimmy Carter's political payback to the teachers' unions mandating the nanny-acracy of the Federal Department of Education. The teachers' unions then turned their political clout on the states getting the right to strike. Creating the unholy alliance in Pennsylvania between those unions and the Pennsylvania State Association of School Directors whose only power is to foster regulations that continue to make their own Boards powerless. Aside from the capital projects of building new, expensive schools, with all of the bureaucratic mandates one is defied to find a School Board in this state that actually has control of more than 10% of its budget.

So how do we break this cycle of confusion? One answer: give parents the right to choose where their children will be educated. Under Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1 launched by Democrat Anthony Williams and Republican Jeff Piccolo parents of children in Pennsylvania's poorest school districts would get a voucher for up to $9,000 to educate their kids. Governor Corbett has endorsed the concept with details to follow. Liberals like Senator Daylin Leach claim the bill would cross the line between church and state if kids were allowed to go to Christian, Jewish, Muslim or other religious schools with state money. The answer to that is clear: the one God who made us all institutionalized parenting long before the state institutionalized our failed educational bureaucracies.

Someday if parents in Pennsylvania get the right to parent, to send their kids to schools that they choose, participate aggressively in their education, the cry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might be realized. Minority children will be on the road to equality in the system. They will be free at last.

Albert Paschall is Senior Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Resarch. Somedays is syndicated to leading newspapers and radio stations in Pennsylvania. Mr. Paschall can be contacted at lincolnpa@aol.com.

Speaking of Rights...

The time has come for PA to enact a Right to Work law

Guest Column By Lowman S. Henry

In Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has chosen to fight a budget battle and engage in a playing field-altering confrontation with his state's labor unions at the same time. Here in Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has decided to fight the budget battle first. But, to ultimately fix the structural budget deficit, he must also fundamentally alter the commonwealth's relationship with public sector labor unions.

Unions in Wisconsin have capitulated to Governor Walker on many of the financial issues involved in their stand-off. But, they have dug in over so-called collective bargaining rights. That is because collective bargaining by public sector unions is what gives them an unfair advantage in contract negotiations.

It is wrong to think of collective bargaining as a right. It is not a right. It is a privilege. It is a privilege that essentially gives unions the ability to dictate the terms of their own contracts. Governor Walker understands the power of collective bargaining which is why he wants to limit such privileges to give state, county and municipal governments a more level playing field.

But, let's spot the unions a big one. Let's not talk about taking away their collective bargaining privileges. Instead, let us simply demand equal rights for everyone. Since the unions are so vocal in support of their "rights," we should expect they would be amenable to support and honor the rights of others.

The next battle should be to give all Pennsylvanians the right to work. Governor Tom Corbett has said he would sign a Right to Work law if it made it to his desk. Republicans hold large majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. Since the GOP is supposedly the party of individual rights and free enterprise, there will never be a better time for passing a Right to Work law.

Simply put a Right to Work law would give every Pennsylvanian the right to hold whatever job he or she chooses without being compelled to join or pay so-called "fair share" fees to a labor union. Compulsory unionism is un-American on its face, and on the practical level, makes Penn's Woods uncompetitive when it comes to attracting new businesses and jobs.

Republican leadership in the General Assembly, often elected with thousands in union campaign contributions, has been reluctant to support or bring a Right to Work law to the floor for a vote. But, Pennsylvanians are angry at state government overspending and the rampant corruption which has plagued the legislature. Voters and taxpayers are demanding action; not just band aide fixes, but real structural reforms.

There is strong public support for enactment of a Right to Work law. Over a 16 year period the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research has asked Pennsylvania voters whether or not they support a Right to Work law. They have consistently supported such a law by a two to one margin. In the most recent poll 56% backed a Right to Work law, while just 30% are in opposition. In surveys of business owners, enactment of a Right to Work law is viewed as a necessary structural change to make Pennsylvania competitive with other states.

Governor Corbett should give unions an option: accept enactment of a Right to Work law, or cede your collective bargaining privileges. Unions, of course, will accept neither. But the time has come to stop letting labor unions - which represent a diminished and shrinking percentage of the work force - dictate the terms of public policy.

It is also time for the Republicans who now control state government to stand up and be counted. Last November taxpayers voted for change. The GOP was given the power to enact change. If that power is not put to use, then Republicans will have no argument for being returned to office the next time they face voters.

Labor unions argue they have the right to band together and bargain collectively. If that is true so is the reverse: individuals have the right to work without being forced against their will to join or pay fees to a union to which they do not wish to belong.

It is time to level the playing field.

Lowman S. Henry is Chairman & CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal. His email address is lhenry@lincolninstitute.org.

PoliticsPA Exclusive: More Good News for Casey in Latest Poll

By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor


Bob Casey continues to enjoy relatively strong favorability, according to a poll obtained by PoliticsPA from the firm Municipoll. 46 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Casey, compared with only 30 percent of voters with an unfavorable opinion.

The survey of 670 likely voters was conducted via IVR from Feb. 21-23, 2011.

These results closely resemble those in last week's Quinnipiac poll, which showed Casey with a net favorable job approval rating of 44 percent to 24 percent.

"Maybe Bob Casey isn't unbeatable but he's looking pretty darn good for a Democrat in a swing state that Senate Republicans are supposedly talking about targeting next year," said Ed Haggerty, President of Municipoll.

There is no front runner for the GOP nomination to challenge Casey, but the Senator performs well against several of the names that have been mentioned so far. Former US Senator Rick Santorum presents the stiffest challenge but Casey bests him 50 to 38 percent. Casey also beats Congressman Charlie Dent, 51 to 32 percent and Congressman Jim Gerlach, 48 to 34 percent.

The down side for Casey? After four years in office, 24 percent of likely voters still don't know enough about him to form an opinion.

The poll also found President Obama's favorability at 51 percent in the state (versus 44 percent unfavorable), again echoing last week's Quinnipiac poll.

Newly elected Republicans Governor Tom Corbett and Senator Pat Toomey enjoy net favorable ratings, with Corbett at 48 percent to 31 percent, and Toomey at 42 percent to 35 percent. However, by a 50 percent to 31 percent margin, voter expect Corbett to break his no texes, no fees pledge.

Voters favor a tax on Marcellus shale gas drilling companies and the sale of the state liquor stores, "to help close the budget deficit." (57 percent to 28 percent for the gas tax, 57 to 30 percent for selling state liquor stores).

And finally, former Senator Rick Santorum suffers a net unfavorable rating in PA, with 39 percent favorable and 44 percent unfavorable.

Pat Toomey: Congress must lead on debt

Washington’s chronic overspending problem is becoming a national emergency.

Judging by the budget he submitted to Congress, President Obama is abrogating his responsibility to provide the principled leadership we badly need to solve the problem. Instead, Congress will have to provide the leadership that the president will not. There is no more time to kick this can down the road.

In only the last decade — since 2000 — total federal spending has doubled. Last year’s level reached 25 percent of our nation’s economy — a post-World War II record and far higher than recent years have averaged. This spending surge has resulted in massive, record-breaking deficits. As recently as 2007, our deficit was only 1.2 percent of our gross domestic product. This year it is more than 10 percent, or $1.6 trillion. Our government is borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar it spends.

The recent, huge deficits have, inevitably, created a mountain of debt. Over the last 20 years, our debt had remained fairly constant as a percentage of our national output. From 1988 through 2008, federal debt averaged 41 percent of GDP. Today it’s 64 percent. It’s going to be 72 percent of GDP by October.

By the end of 2011, the debt will have more than doubled in only four years. President Obama has proposed tripling it by 2017. And, this is just a fraction of the problem that we have.
These debt figures include neither the government’s contingent liabilities nor the unfunded commitments we have taken on. Federal guarantees of just Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s outstanding obligations total $5.4 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office.

And the unfunded commitments of the big entitlement programs — Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid — total well into the tens of trillions of dollars.

Economists who have studied the effects of excessive debt agree that it hinders economic growth and can lead to huge, sometimes repeated, financial crises. Many believe we are already experiencing the former and are on a collision course with the latter.

Yet the president just proposed another budget that continues deficit spending as usual.
Over the next 10 years, the president’s budget adds $7.9 trillion in new spending beyond his 2011 budget, $1.4 trillion in new tax increases, and still adds $8.5 trillion to our national debt. He proposes keeping the federal government bloated at nearly 24 percent of GDP and offers no reforms for the big entitlement programs driving our future deficits. And these deficits will likely be worse than the White House projects since its budget assumes stronger economic growth, lower interest rates, and lower inflation than many economists believe likely.

This irresponsible budget comes at a time when the country is only a few months away from hitting its statutory debt ceiling. Since ongoing tax revenue will fund only 60 percent of projected government spending, Congress would have to raise the debt limit to permit more borrowing and continue down the spending path we are on.

The president and his administration have demanded that Congress raise the debt ceiling, prior to reaching it, and with no conditions attached.

That would be a big mistake. An administration that gave us an $800 billion stimulus bill; a trillion-plus-dollar health-care bill; hundreds of millions in bailouts; and that even now advocates a $50 billion high-speed-rail boondoggle, cannot be relied upon to rein in spending on some indeterminate day in the future. We need to act now.

Congress should insist on real, immediate spending cuts and substantive reforms of our broken spending process as part of any debt-limit-increase package. The House has made a good start on the former with the bill it recently passed that funds the government for the rest of this year.

As for substantive, structural spending reforms, a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution would be an ideal fiscal straitjacket. But I would be open to other reforms including tough, statutory spending caps that would limit total spending and force Congress to live within its means.


If a family spends beyond its means for years, charging all of its excess purchases to an array of credit cards, when the family maxes out on the cards most Americans would say it was time for them to reform and cut their spending — before they got another credit card!

It should be no different for our government. Too much debt inhibits job creation now and dangerously jeopardizes our financial, economic, and even national security future. Before we authorize more borrowing, Congress should enact the reforms needed to put us back on a sustainable fiscal path despite the president’s objections. Anything less would be irresponsible.

Pat Toomey is the junior U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

Fiscal self-discipline isn't in U.S. vocabulary

Guest Column By Frank Ryan

President Obama announced the 2012 budget of $3.7 trillion with an expected deficit of $1.1 trillion. This will be the fourth consecutive year the nation has run a deficit more than $1 trillion, which will push the national debt into new territory as it tops $16 trillion. A national disaster is in the making.

When combined with exploding state deficits and other unfunded liabilities, the debt crisis will begin to unfold rapidly and unpredictably for our citizens. The Republican-led Congress responded with demands for budget cuts of $100 billion. The current debt crisis requires so much more, but it seems to not be politically feasible.

Some might question why America should be concerned. After all, our professors taught us that fiscal policy and the use of government to smooth out the business cycle is a legitimate way to govern.

This time, things are different. Fiscal and monetary policies, as with all economic measures, operate within constraints. The constraints have all been broken and the effects of these fiscal and monetary policies are uncharted and will lead to extremely volatile results.

The issues facing our nation are profound and made more so because of the constraints of our aging population, the coming retirement of baby boomers, the decline in education quality and a voter turnout of less than 30 percent in the 2010 elections does not bode well for reform.

I specialize in keeping organizations out of bankruptcy. In doing so, I have found elements that are critical to the success of the turnaround of the business. Most organizations ignore corrective actions early on such that a full-blown economic crisis ensues. For economies, this is part of the “creative destruction” described by professor Joseph Schumpeter as part of the natural economic process.

It is natural for a people to ignore warnings until it is too late. Enforced discipline is apparently preferable to financial self-discipline.

For a turnaround to be successful, everyone must understand the critical problems being faced. Everyone must be willing to sacrifice. I contend that with only 30 percent of voters engaged, we, as a nation, don’t quite get it yet.

The $100 billion in cuts might be all that is palatable to the electorate right now. Unfortunately, this token cutback is not sufficient to stop even one month worth of excess spending.

True reform is required, but my belief is that it is not politically acceptable as yet. Ending the departments of Energy and Education come to mind as possible candidates for cutbacks, but I doubt that such cuts would be enacted before the crisis becomes so severe as to not make any difference.

Second, the turnaround requires all to take a long-term view and not a short-term view. Self-discipline must win out over self-indulgence. If no one is willing to accept change or cutbacks, then all cuts will be cosmetic in nature and not yield substantive results. Ford Motor Co. and its unions negotiated the tough issues and solved them. They will emerge a great company and will survive. They remembered their customers and their dealers and not just themselves. GM took the easy way out and will lose in the long run.

A turnaround is not without discomfort. The longer the fixes take to be enacted though, the more painful the cure. Social Security, for example, was first identified as a problem in the 1970s yet no substantive corrective actions were taken. The final Social Security fix will not be pleasant, but it will be done.

Third, a successful turnaround requires spending less than you take in and not increasing your revenues at the expense of controlling your costs. Government cannot make up its deficiencies by volume.

Fourth, there cannot be any sacred cows in a turnaround. Every department must be viewed and waste eliminated. In the federal government alone, the effort must be undertaken to remove incompetent managers and employees to make government more effective and less costly.

Finally, the customer must take center stage. In a government, the customer is the taxpayer. It is the person paying the bills, not the recipient of the government largesse, but the financier of the government who must be looked at as someone to nurture and not vilify.

Without the steps above enacted in a timely manner, the turnaround will not work. The failed turnaround is marked by a situation in which the solution is forced upon us. I fear that is where we are headed. Our creative destruction is under way. The bad news is that it is not stoppable any longer.

The great news is that in the long run our vibrant people will survive and a greater nation is likely to emerge but only if we decide to get engaged in the fight and strive to remain faithful to the founding principles of our nation and our Constitution. I am confident that we will.

Frank Ryan of Lebanon is a CPA specializing in corporate restructuring. He lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies and is a retired colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Somebody should tell David Kessler he lost the election

I was driving along Memorial Highway (Route 662) in Oley earlier today when I noticed an odd sign in front of an office building. It read "State Representative David Kessler."

The problem with the sign is that Kessler lost his bid for re-election last November and is no longer representing the 130th State House District.

The new state rep for the 130th is Republican David Maloney, who has district offices in Douglassville and Boyertown, the two most populous parts of his district.

Democrat Kessler moved his offices to Oley, where he lives, for his convenience, while he served four years in the Legislature.

I've heard Kessler took the defeat pretty hard, but it's time to move on. There's no need to confuse residents of the 130th District about who their state rep is.

Citizen Kessler should take down his office signs.

It's not like the signs are etched in marble. A screwdriver is all that's needed to remove Kessler's signs.

Maybe Rep. Maloney, who was a contractor before winning a seat in the Legislature, could help Kessler take down the signs.

Pennsylvania needs a Marcellus drilling tax

Guest Column By Greg Vitali

Pennsylvania is the only major natural gas producing state in the nation that does not impose a drilling tax. Revenues from such a tax are now desperately needed to help fund Pennsylvania's looming budget deficit, support important environmental programs and compensate municipalities impacted by drilling.

I have recently introduced legislation that would impose a Marcellus drilling tax.

H.B. 33 would impose a tax slightly less than that of West Virginia -- about 6 percent of the market value of the gas. This rate was selected because it has proven effective in our neighboring state and therefore should not hinder the growth of Pennsylvania's natural gas industry

The tax would generate about $200 million in fiscal year 2011-12, increasing to nearly $420 million by fiscal year 2015-16. These revenues would be shared equally by the state's general fund, environmental programs and local governments.

With more than a $4 billion budget shortfall predicted, the Commonwealth desperately needs this revenue to help minimize drastic program and services cuts.

This tax is also needed to replenish Pennsylvania's Environmental Stewardship Fund (Growing Greener), which is running out of money. In the past four years alone, this popular program has helped preserve over 75,000 acres of Pennsylvania farmland and open space, restored 16,000 acres of abandoned mine land and improved over 230 community parks.

Drilling tax revenues are also needed to compensate municipalities for their added expenses in repairing and maintaining roads and bridges, preserving water supplies, and other costs from drilling.

Arguments by drilling companies that such a tax would drive them out of Pennsylvania do not bear close scrutiny. Of the 15 largest gas producing states, only Pennsylvania does not impose a drilling tax (California has a fee). Where would these companies go?

Additionally, Pennsylvania has the advantage of being located in the heart of the strongest natural gas market in the world -- the northeastern United States -- resulting in lower gas transportation costs for Pennsylvania drillers.

These drilling companies (many foreign) are hugely profitable and ought to pay their fair share.

The reality is the citizens of Pennsylvania are already paying a drilling tax -- on the gas we buy from other states that now impose it. It's time for Pennsylvanians to get some of the benefit.

Greg Vitali is a Democratic state representative from Delaware County and serves on the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. He can be reached at greg@gregvitali.com.

Curbing Union Power‏

Guest Column By Matthew J Brouillette

There's a major battle brewing between the taxpayers and the public sector unions across the nation

Wisconsin's new Gov. Scott Walker and conservatives in the legislature have rolled up their sleeves and already brought to the floor a bill to curb public sector collective bargaining privileges and require government workers to pay towards their pension and health care benefits.

Similar waves of freedom are being sailed in places like Ohio, Indiana and Idaho. In Pennsylvania, with 17 of the 19 union contracts with the Commonwealth set to expire this year, concessions from Pennsylvania's government employee unions will have to be made to reach a balanced budget.

We need to make sure those "negotiations" include a requirement that government employees move from defined-benefit to a defined-contribution retirement plan, automatic pay increases are discontinued, and that unions can no longer hold taxpayers over the barrel on unsustainable labor costs.

Today, I'll be on WHP 580 AM in Harrisburg from 3:00 - 6:00 PM (and again on Thursday this week). I'll be talking about what's going on in Wisconsin with the head of our sister think tank in the Badger State, the MacIver Institute. I'll also be chatting with Drew Ryun of American Majority Action, one of the organizers of the Tea Party counter-protest this past Saturday.

Rick Dreyfuss, our senior fellow, will also join me to discuss public vs. private sector pay and benefits. And I'm sure we'll also get into school choice and liquor choice with your phone calls.

Tune in if you're in the area, or listen online at http://www.whp580.com/, today and Thursday!

The opportunity to put Pennsylvania back on a course to economic prosperity has been charted. No doubt the seas will be rough, but with your help we can make sure we reach our destination of more freedom and less government.

Matthew J. Brouillette is the President & CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation

Dems want to give Obama power to shut down the Internet

There's a big difference between the words Democrat and Democracy.

Congressional Democrats are pushing a bill that would give Barack Obama authority to pull the "kill switch" on the Internet.

If that sounds anti-Democratic or anti-American, perhaps you should find out where your Congressional representative stands on the issue of shutting down the free flow of communication and information.

Read more about the latest move toward fascism by the far left here.

Mary Young: Battle to eliminate school property tax gains steam - Reading Eagle

The effort to eliminate school property taxes is alive and well, according to a news alert e-mailed this week by the Berks County-based Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition.

The coalition cites three reasons:

During their campaigns, many of the new state House members, including those representing parts of Berks, promised to join the fight.

State Rep. Dave Reed, an Indiana County Republican who chairs the party's Policy Committee, has formed three subcommittees.

The panel charged with recommending GOP tax policy has state Rep. Jim Cox, a Spring Township Republican, as co-chairman.

Many of the members are for elimination, and Cox, who was re-elected in November to a third two-year term, has made tax elimination his focus this year.

He's formed a bipartisan property tax caucus that has nearly half the House's 203 members on board.

Cox's involvement is significant because he was a chief of staff for former state Rep. Sam Rohrer, a Robeson Township Republican.

He wrote much of Rohrer's proposed School Property Tax Elimination Act, which would have replaced the school tax with an expanded sales tax.

The proposal never got off the ground in the Legislature, even though it is the most popular plan among taxpayer groups such as the coalition.

Cox sent out a letter explaining that he formed the caucus because he felt a new approach was needed.

"We've been spending years trying to rally enough support to have a vote on the bill," he wrote. "I feel very strongly that we need to amass support for our cause before we put another plan out there that just sits in a committee and never comes to the floor of the House for debate and a vote."

The 85 members of the caucus, and more that could join, will formulate a proposal that has broad support before the proposed law is even written, according to Cox's letter.

He also stated that he's not looking for a compromise, but total elimination of the tax.

Another sign that the elimination movement is gaining momentum is a growth spurt in membership in the Pennsylvania Coalition of Taxpayer Associations.

It now has 43 taxpayer groups involved, with five added recently. Five more are expected to join soon.

Cox is working with that group, too.