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Does Pennsylvania Care More About Football or Taxes?

June 8, 2009 · 5 comments

Pittsburgh_Steelers.jpgWhen it comes to football, Pennsylvanians are pretty hard core. From the Steelers to the Eagles, NFL football makes headline after headline in the fall. Also in the state, we have a little college football team called Penn State that seems to do pretty well from time to time. I think it’s fair to say that the state is passionate about football.

Rep. Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Cranberry) wants to see a little of that heart when it comes to talking taxes. On Tuesday, June 9, representatives from the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Higher Taxes and the National Federation of Independent Business will speak at a rally in the rotunda at the Capitol Building at 10 a.m. Metcalfe is hopeful that taxpayers turn out, too. He noted that record numbers of citizens showed up to watch Pittsburgh take home another Super Bowl tropy, and encouraged a similar level of participation: “Ten percent of the people who showed up to see the Steelers win the Super Bowl — if they would descend on the Capitol, it would be historic for this building.”

Metcalfe has a good point. Whether you agree with Governor Rendell (who claims that an income tax increase of .3% is needed to close the state’s $3.2 billion deficit) or Senate Republicans (who argue that a tax increase isn’t necessary and was Rendell’s plan all along), participation in the process is important. It’s easy to yell and scream about taxes – but how much do you really care about it? If you’ll yell and scream about football, why not a tax increase?

Folks will stand in the freezing cold to watch a mediocre team lose as much as they will to watch a good team win. They’ll drive hours to see games and players and spend tons of money on jerseys, pennants and posters. They’ll organize entire day-long tailgating events and invite friends and family over for parties and dinners – all to watch the “big game” and in football parlance, that’s more or less every game.

But what about taxes?

Hey, I’m not claiming that talking about taxes is necessarily as fun as attending a Super Bowl party but it’s arguably more important to your life (assuming, of course, that you’re not Ben Roethlisberger). Why not show a little – and I’m talking just a little – excitement when it comes to tax policy? Write a letter to your local representative (or to the editor of your local newspaper). Attend a rally. Read the budget. Get educated. Don’t think it won’t make a difference. It will. Lots of what goes on “behind the scenes” happens because nobody cared enough to say differently.

Show that you care about where your tax dollars go.

Statistically, people have a negative reaction when it comes to increasing the income tax rate. But apparently it’s more along the lines of a shrug than a full on “Booo!” And heck, I live in Philadelphia. We’ll boo just about anything. Why not taxes?

Do you think the Steelers and Eagles would show up every game and play if the stadiums were empty? Let me clue you in: they wouldn’t. Cheering matters.

So here’s my advice – and it’s not just for Pennsylvania. Let your legislators know how you feel. If they’re doing the right thing, why not shake a pom-pom in their direction? And if they’re not doing the right thing, give them an “encouraging cheer” in the right direction or flat out “boo” them loudly. Show that you care as much about taxes as you do about football. And since I realize that’s just not possible for some of you (you know who I’m talking about, PSU people), at least make the effort.

Image courtesy of Creative Commons, taken by Steel City Hobbies.

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Does Wal-Mart want your child to read?

October 17, 2007 · 0 comments

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in America, according to Fortune 500. According to Good Jobs First, Wal-Mart recently posted earnings of $350 billion in annual revenue and reported a profit of $11 billion (with a b).

One thing is clear about Wal-Mart: they don’t like to spend money. My mom always said, “That’s how the rich stay rich.” I guess she was right.

On its hike to the top, Wal-Mart has dodged fair pay with illegal workers at more than 61 stores in 2003 and followed it up in 2005, though Wal-Mart executives (of course) swear that they don’t know a thing about it.

In yet another blow to its image, an investigation of Wal-Mart’s local property tax records indicates that Wal-Mart systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and government services. Based on a large national sample of Wal-Mart stores and a review of all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005, Good Jobs First, a self-described “national policy resource center for grassroots groups and public officials, promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families” has concluded that Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. Additionally, Good Jobs First reports that, at many facilities, there have been appeals in multiple years, totaling more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide (you can download the report here as a pdf).

It seems that Wal-Mart doesn’t want to pay its fair share.

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The Shill of the Game

October 14, 2007 · 0 comments

ohio-state.jpg

No, that’s not a typo. These days, it seems, it is all about the dollars. Even in college sports – or maybe especially in college sports.

The headline on this week’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday Edition, blared “Raising Funds – and eyebrows” – the story about the push to raise money for colleges through athletics made the front page. It seems especially fitting to run the story during football season (and maybe just a little self-serving that it focused on Temple and Penn State Universities less than a week before the well-known Nittany Lions pick on the Owls in Philadelphia) but it’s hardly news. The role of the dollar in college sports has been under fire for more than a year now, from the IRS inquiry into whether the tax-exempt status of colleges should remain considering the “empires” that have been built on the backs of taxpayers to the controversial salaries paid to coaches to Congress’ debate about the role of sports in secondary education – including basketball. What has come out of this debate is largely nothing – a lot of drama on both sides about the value (or not) of sports programs at colleges and universities. While there should be pressure to answer this debate in a very public way, there isn’t. Perhaps it’s impolitic to do it with football play-offs looming in the distance – too many OSU fans in Congress (yes, that’s OSU pictured above)? And then there’s basketball… And then, baseball. It’s just so darned inconvenient. Only Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has dared bring it up again recently; he promised last month to take another look at whether tax-exempt status was appropriate – but then, who are we kidding? He went to the University of Northern Iowa.

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