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It’s the spending, not the revenue

In a post last week, my colleague Tony Heyl took issue with Tom Corbett’s pledge to not raise taxes because “we never have a grown up discussion about taxes at any level of government.” He is right that part of the problem is that we don’t have the appropriate conversations, except the talk needs to be more about the spending, not the revenue.

Tony claims we need to have tax increases on the table because Pennsylvania is struggling to balance its budget. What needs to be pointed out though is that Pennsylvania, year after year, struggles to balance a budget that has grown by 40 percent under Gov. Ed Rendell. That’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

On top of that, how much of that additional spending is just from debt made by imprudent choices by Rendell and the General Assembly? Just from the debacle of trying to toll I-80, the debt taken out against future tolls that don’t exist is putting a $472 million dollar hole in the transportation budget alone. Or how about the increase to the RCAP debt limit that will add $600 million in “pork” spending and $48 million a year in debt payments to fund “Walking Around Money”? Or the disaster that is the pension fund that went from surpluses to huge deficits predominantly because benefits were increased 50 percent for elected officials and 25 percent for other employees?

The list of bad spending decisions and prioritization that are driving the need for some people to talk about tax hikes goes on and o.

That is what the conversation should really be about, not the role of taxes, but what we spend them on. People complain about taxes, it will always be the case and will never change, but they also accept that taxes do have to exist. The problem is where and how they are spent.

For instance, Tony writes: “Everybody wants to have free health care, well-maintained roads, top-notch public schools, a healthy pollution-free environment, and zero crime…” First, the assumption that everyone wants something free, like health care, from the government is a fallacy and is more of a problem than an anti-tax pledge. Second, out of the rest of the items listed, roads, education, clean water and public safety, he managed to pick the services that most people agree are a core role for the government to have, but how much of those are actually the priority? What do we fund before those goals are achieved?

For example, is funding a Specter Library or a Murtha Center more important than fixing roads? Is a $75 million break to the film industry a higher priority than education?

I don’t know about other people, but I don’t want to tell taxpayers we need to keep tax increases on the table so the state can build a shrine to elected officials.

On top of all of this, there is little regard in prioritizing funding based on success of programs. This is easily seen by Rendell’s plans to cut all departments by 2 percent across the board. What this says is he doesn’t care if a program works or fails, they all get cut the same. He either assumes all programs are equally successful or he doesn’t care. The lack of adult discussion is that politicians won’t tell us that a program is a failure and needs to be removed. It’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

At the end of the day, I don’t have a problem with a politician saying they won’t raise taxes. At least that’s taking a position. What I do have a problem with is when politicians won’t talk about cutting and funding programs based on success and priority.

September 7, 2010 at 9:46 am

--Adam Lang

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