Special Session on ‘Changing the Subject’
Forgetting the pay raise, not tax reform, is the issue
After a long, hot summer dominated by public uproar over the middle-of-the-night pay raise our state legislators have returned to work. And they return to a rarity in the annals of Pennsylvania law-making – a special session. Governor Ed Rendell calls it a special session on tax reform. A more accurate name would be a “Special Session on Changing the Subject.”
The governor and legislative leaders, all guilty of skirting the constitution to raid our wallets, now would have us believe that their highest priority is reforming the state’s complex and unfair system of local property taxation. Rendell uncorked the proposal with virtually no warning, but the legislative leadership reacted with a bi-partisan “amen chorus” of support.
Don’t get too excited for this is not about cutting your taxes. It is about diverting your attention from the pay raise issue. The pay raise has roiled the legislature like no other issue has in a generation. Every attempt by legislators to justify the pay raise has resulted in fueling rather than quelling the public outcry. Since there is no was to justify their action on the pay raise, the new strategy is to change the subject.
House Speaker John Perzel’s reaction to Governor Rendell calling the special session illustrates the cravenly political nature of the move. Perzel said: “For more than three decades, Pennsylvania homeowners – especially our seniors who are often hit the hardest by escalating property taxes – have demanded property tax reform.” Well, John, after three decades it is nice you’ve finally decided to do something about the problem.
The fact is this we have been this route before. A couple of years ago State Senator Lisa Boscola backed the legislature into a special session on tax reform. She was serious about it, but nobody else was. The special session went no where. If, as Speaker Perzel correctly claims, the state’s taxpayers have been clamoring for tax reform “for more than three decades,” why wasn’t something done then? Was Senator Boscola the only one under the Capitol dome at the time who understood taxpayer angst?
Tax reform is a complicated and difficult issue. The Pennsylvania legislature does not do complicated or difficult very well. That is why such problems tend to fester for decades before anything, usually something minor, is done. But, with the pay raise issue threatening to send legislators packing faster than a gulf coast hurricane, even something as divisive as tax reform looks good.
Despite the illegitimacy of its birth, the special session might just yield something beneficial. The governor and legislative leaders alike know that a failure to act on this, and a wide range of other key issues, will only throw more gasoline on the fire lit by the pay raise. A number of proposals, ranging from timid steps like Rep. Mario Civera’s plan to allow taxpayers to pay their taxes in 12 easy installments, to the governor’s plan to salvage Act 72, to bold plans like the Commonwealth Caucus/Piccola total overhaul bill, give legislators a wide menu from which to select.
The danger here is that some half-way measure passes to great fanfare from the incumbent party and attention is in fact diverted from the pay raise. But voters should not allow the special session to indeed change the subject. Taxpayers have been demanding tax reform for a long time, and the governor and the legislature should be given no credit for doing their job three decades too late.
