From WRTA.com
Giving Birth to an Elephant
By John Kasun - Duncansville, PA
Jan 22, 2007, 06:36
I am not afraid to say that I am not too smart. I say that because it is true and to back it up many people who know me readily agree. However I am not sure that not being smart can at times be very helpful. Actually I think it helps me to see things as they really are. I have always prided myself on being smart enough to know the right questions to ask and just dumb enough to not be afraid to ask them. A perfect example of what I mean is happening as we speak in our county and our state.
There has been a lot of talk recently from our county commissioners and school boards about the desperate need for property reassessment. First let’s define the term “desperate need”. What that really means is that they have found new ways to spend the taxpayers’ money and feel that they could spend more money if they could just get their hands on it. They kind of put me in mind of a teenager when it comes to money. They don’t care where it comes from as long as they get to spend it.
Second the answer to their need for more money is to increase our property taxes so they are now planning to do property reassessment so everyone pays their fair share. Fair share! Fair share! What is fair about driving people out of their homes so we don’t have to solve the real problem? And what is the “real problem” you might ask? The “real problem” is tax reform.
Now tax reform is interesting because for over 25 years our legislators have been telling us they are working on tax reform. As a matter of fact in many ways they remind me of those bobbin head dolls in the back of a car window. Their heads go up and down but nothing gets done.
The Pennsylvania Legislators is one of the largest and highest paid legislative bodies in our country which makes them one of the largest legislative bodies per capita and therefore the highest paid legislative body in the WORLD. In the WORLD. However the Pennsylvania Legislators combined with the body of County Commissioners across the state have done nothing about tax reform in over 25 years.
Now back to my point about me not being very smart, let me ask a couple of stupid questions.
If it takes a woman nine months to have a baby and it takes two years for an elephant to have a calf and it took four years to fight World War II and if it took America less than ten years to put a man on the moon why has it taken our lawmakers 25 years to do nothing about tax reform?
I really don’t want to hear how hard it is to accomplish, I want to know why they are not doing anything. Is it possible that they are not qualified? Is it possible that they don’t want too? Is it possible that they don’t’ care? Property reassessment – fair—give me a break, I may be dumb but I’m not stupid.
The recent tax increase for which the Blair Country Commissioners sought and received approval for in court will raise property tax by 23 percent in 2007. However by their own admission that is just a stop gap measure and will not balance the budget. Additional taxes will be needed for 2008 under the present budget structure and therefore the call for tax reassessment.
However tax reassessment is a slippery slope. The reassessment of property simple means that the county, the municipalities and the school district will be able to raise taxes to new and to a large degree unlimited heights. The doubling of property taxes in a short period of time is not at all unrealistic. At what point will some persons simply not be able to pay those taxes and be threatened with the loss of their homes?
Proper tax reform could reduce or eliminate the property tax and more evenly distribute the tax burden over the entire population and it can be done but all fingers point to the state legislature as the stumbling block to tax reform.
Are we to believe that the state legislature does not realize or care that the present tax structure places and will continue to place an unbearable burden on the private citizen? If we could only find some way to tie tax reform to a pay raise we might get some action. Until then I guess it is easier to give birth to an elephant.
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