Vicious Cycle
This country was founded on and has continued to exist under the notion that private property is sacrosanct. Now, however, government has the right to tax it to a point where they seize it from you. This is close to fascist behavior: you work and flourish within capitalism, and the government takes your property—whether it be land, buildings, or cash.
Granted, there are legitimate expenses of government to remain a civil and educated society. The problem regarding property taxes at the local level is that the state permits local governments to tax at will, and there is no check or balance against that local government until the next election---4 years away. In the meantime, people’s lives have been ruined, primarily because as areas degenerate economically or in population, there is not enough tax base to contribute to costs. Hence, skyrocketing millage rates and/or reassessments where the government tells you your property is worth more than it really is on the free market, just so they can extract more out of you. Couple that with costs that are out of control due to greedy public employee unions who honestly believe that everyone should have less or none at all so that they can have more or everything---and you have a disaster of biblical proportions just waiting to happen.
That is where we are now. I fear that the Legislature will not even begin to wake up until the results of the 2010 census are reported. It will show an ever-older PA population, a decline in population, and another loss of a Congressional seat. The only thing the state Legislature is working so hard on is to make the Commonwealth of PA ever more irrelevant on the national scene, and because this state is so family unfriendly—despite the old tourist line about having friends in Pennsylvania—the best and the brightest of the youth we are able to educate leave the state either for college and don’t come back, or leave right after college and set up their lives elsewhere. This has been going on for at least a decade already—and no changes.
Over 33 million people live in the state of California and they have less than 40 state senators and less than 85 state representatives. We have about 12 million people and we have 50 state senators and 203 state representatives---complete with district staff, Harrisburg staff, plus Committee staffers. They get all the perks the Legislature does, except for the cars. This is why there is no state money for public education, so they compartmentalize us into 501 school districts, tell us to fend for ourselves, and some districts are lucky—because they have Hershey Park or Dorney Park or some other such thing that all of us subsidize their taxes when we go visit. Other districts have nothing—no tourism, no business, a lot of kids classified as special ed, horrible PSSA test results—and what happens to us? Out of control property taxes. Why? Because the politicians believe that MORE government, and hence more public employees, is the solution to the problem. That leads us to higher taxes the next year.
Voila!!—a horribly vicious cycle that the legislators in Harrisburg are too dumb and/or spineless to do anything about.
Cheryl Zaleski
Coatesville Taxpayers Alliance
Granted, there are legitimate expenses of government to remain a civil and educated society. The problem regarding property taxes at the local level is that the state permits local governments to tax at will, and there is no check or balance against that local government until the next election---4 years away. In the meantime, people’s lives have been ruined, primarily because as areas degenerate economically or in population, there is not enough tax base to contribute to costs. Hence, skyrocketing millage rates and/or reassessments where the government tells you your property is worth more than it really is on the free market, just so they can extract more out of you. Couple that with costs that are out of control due to greedy public employee unions who honestly believe that everyone should have less or none at all so that they can have more or everything---and you have a disaster of biblical proportions just waiting to happen.
That is where we are now. I fear that the Legislature will not even begin to wake up until the results of the 2010 census are reported. It will show an ever-older PA population, a decline in population, and another loss of a Congressional seat. The only thing the state Legislature is working so hard on is to make the Commonwealth of PA ever more irrelevant on the national scene, and because this state is so family unfriendly—despite the old tourist line about having friends in Pennsylvania—the best and the brightest of the youth we are able to educate leave the state either for college and don’t come back, or leave right after college and set up their lives elsewhere. This has been going on for at least a decade already—and no changes.
Over 33 million people live in the state of California and they have less than 40 state senators and less than 85 state representatives. We have about 12 million people and we have 50 state senators and 203 state representatives---complete with district staff, Harrisburg staff, plus Committee staffers. They get all the perks the Legislature does, except for the cars. This is why there is no state money for public education, so they compartmentalize us into 501 school districts, tell us to fend for ourselves, and some districts are lucky—because they have Hershey Park or Dorney Park or some other such thing that all of us subsidize their taxes when we go visit. Other districts have nothing—no tourism, no business, a lot of kids classified as special ed, horrible PSSA test results—and what happens to us? Out of control property taxes. Why? Because the politicians believe that MORE government, and hence more public employees, is the solution to the problem. That leads us to higher taxes the next year.
Voila!!—a horribly vicious cycle that the legislators in Harrisburg are too dumb and/or spineless to do anything about.
Cheryl Zaleski
Coatesville Taxpayers Alliance
posted by Helen | 12:20 PM
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