http://www.pasenate.com/?p=7498
Excerpts:
"What I resent most is Corbett’s snake oil medicine which only guarantees that local communities and counties will be forced to raise taxes and millage rates at the local level to fund their obligations to their students and residents. To be clear, the governor has pledged not to raise taxes on the state level, but forces the hand of local municipalities to raise taxes instead.
The governor continues his assault on public and higher education by cutting at least another $400 million in his budget proposal. His shameful retreat from the state’s obligation to fund local schools at a 50 percent level would again force school boards to raise local taxes, cut important educational programs, require tuition increases and more student debt, and lay-off more teachers and professors. Those we hold accountable as the gatekeepers of investments in our future by teaching our children, our schools, are seen as expendable under this budget.
Making matters worse, an unknown amount of subsidy to our local school districts from state government remains outstanding because of creative budgeting tactics which combines line items. While it may make it appear that our local school districts are being level funded, in reality these cuts are more painful, significant reductions.
The governor claims his budget again holds the line on taxes, but in truth, his proposal merely shirks the responsibility of funding Pennsylvania schools and forces local school boards to do his dirty work for him — imposing another round of maximum property tax hikes to make up for budget cuts for which he is responsible.
Bowing to party rhetoric which is big on political dogma and small on facts, the budget again underfunds the Department of Public Welfare, bringing more ill-advised, short sighted and painful cuts to vulnerable families struggling to survive this protracted recession; this, on top of the governor’s already destructive decisions to eliminate AdultBasic and HEMAP, and to drastically undercut SNAP. Corbett is busy vilifying the poor and needy while providing tax breaks for corporations.
While his budget is balanced on the backs of struggling families and school children, it gives another pass to wealthy gas drillers and huge corporations shielding taxable assets in states like Delaware. While poor families, children and seniors are being asked to get by with less, his budget curiously finds enough revenue to hand out another round of corporate tax cuts."
The Republican-dominated legislature has been stalling efforts to impose a moderate tax on gas drillers for several years now. While public pressure is finally forcing the governor to act, his proposal sells our state’s resources short and would trample the rights of communities to implement reasonable zoning limitations.
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