State Director Of Pa. Chapter Of Americans For Prosperity: Tax Bill 504 Does Nothing To Address The Real Issues
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Beth Anne Mumford, the State Director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of Americans for Prosperity, spoke with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT morning host Chris Stigall about tax bill 504, which she says raises the personal income tax about 20% and the sales tax about 15% while installing some temporary property tax reductions.
"What this bill does not do is make those property tax reductions permanent. It does nothing to make sure that school boards aren't going to be able to raise taxes again in the future. It does nothing to get rid of those exemptions that are already in place that allow school boards to raise taxes anyway, even without voter approval. So, it's a bill that basically cuts taxes by raising taxes on everybody in Pennsylvania, and it's something that we oppose, because we see these tax increases in Pennsylvania as bad for the economy and bad for the economic opportunity in the future and we really believe that people are much more capable of spending their money much more wisely than the government will."
Mumford feels the bill does nothing to address the "real" reasons why the costs are going up, primarily due to what she refers to as a "pension crisis" that exists in the state.
"Most of the school board increases that we see are to cover pension costs, and they're exempted from any kind of cap on raising taxes because of those pension and health costs -- really, the kind of things that are driving increased costs across the country both in private businesses and private organizations [is] the fact that we have unfunded pensions that need to be covered, the fact that health care costs keep going up. There is nothing in this legislation that deals with any of that. So, in the long term what we're going to get are higher income taxes, higher sales taxes, and ultimately we'll be right back up to higher property taxes. That's not good for anybody."
What she was especially offended by with this bill was the fact that an amendment for this bill that would enable a voter referendum on the bill was turned down.
