Metcalfe to Advance Taxpayer Protection Act

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2, 2015

Metcalfe, House State Government Committee Preempt Governor’s
Tax and Spend Budget Address By Advancing Taxpayer Protection Act

HARRISBURG — Less than 24 hours before the governor’s annual budget address, the PA House State Government Committee successfully advanced the Taxpayer Protection Act (House 472), that would Constitutionally limit the future growth of state government spending, to the House floor for consideration.

"With the governor’s proposed budget already reported to include unprecedented spending increases, which of course, he plans to pay for with massive increases to both the sales and personal income taxes, final passage of the Taxpayer Protection Act cannot come soon enough," said House State Government Committee Chairman, Representative Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler). "In fact, had this constitutional spending limit legislation been in place in 2003, or at the beginning of the Rendell administration, Pennsylvania’s working families would have kept $28.7 billion of their money, almost $9,200 per family of four."

House Bill 472 would amend Article VIII, Section 18 of the Pennsylvania Constitution to establish parameters the Commonwealth must abide by every fiscal year in limiting increases in the total rate of spending. The rate would be determined by combining growth in inflation with increases in state population.

"The confiscation and transfer of wealth from the hands of working citizens into the hands of government has proven time and time again to have a negative long-term impact on private-sector entrepreneurial endeavors that ultimately spur job creation," said Metcalfe. "Final passage of the Taxpayer Protection Act represents a Constitutional death sentence for the type of runaway and uncontrolled government spending that Pennsylvania’s governor wants to inflict on every Commonwealth taxpayer, regardless of their ability to pay for it. In the short term, Pennsylvania’s already astronomical $2.3 billion and growing budget deficit demands that this year’s state budget be driven by real fiscal reform and greater economic freedom by reducing, not increasing, spending or the overall tax burden on Pennsylvanians."

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