House to Vote on Massive Tax Hike

Member Group : Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania

KEY VOTE: Senate Budget Proposal

This weekend the House will vote on a tax package to fund the Senate’s budget proposal. The tax increases include:

• Personal income tax increased to 3.3 percent
• Sales tax added to digital downloads and movies
• new tax on e-cigarettes

Rather than prioritizing spending, the Senate increased corporate welfare by more than 50 percent. We highlighted other items ripe for cutting last week in a blog post. The budget can easily be balanced by eliminating or reducing spending on items like:

• Eliminate the $103 million increase to Community and Economic Development.
• Transfer the $250 million from the Race Horse Development Fund to more urgent spending needs.
• Save $750 million by winding down active pension fund management and switch to index funds. (These savings would likely take more than one year to materialize depending on how quickly the investments can be liquidated).
• Eliminate the $2.8 million Milk Marketing Fund; the $8.7 million spent on marketing Pennsylvania to businesses; the $6.9 million spent marketing the state to foreign countries; the $88 million spent by the Commonwealth Financing Authority; $34 million spent on Pennsylvania First; $1.1 million for public television and $8.7 million for tourism marketing.

Please, take a moment to tell your representative and senator in the General Assembly that Pennsylvania cannot tax and spend its way to prosperity.

KEY VOTE: Senate Budget Proposal