What a sham
Taxpayers misled once again The gambling industry prefers to call its business “gaming.” A pleasant-sounding term doesn’t change the reality that slot machines, card games and roulette wheels all are forms of gambling.
But in one sense, gaming is the right word to describe Pennsylvania’s property tax relief program.
The Rendell Administration and the Legislature pulled the old shell game on taxpayers when they rammed through the legalization of slot machines in 2004.
Property tax relief is on the way, they claimed. Once casino revenues start pouring in, homeowners would see their property tax bills drop by 30 percent or more, they promised.
The public should sue them for breach of promise.
The average Pennsylvania household will receive a property-tax credit of nearly $200 for the 2010-11 school year. That’s funded by $773 million in gambling revenue, much less than the $1 billion predicted by Rendell and other cheerleaders.
Because the credits are not cumulative but taxes keep going up each year, homeowners will keep seeing higher bills. For example, if your school tax was $3,200 last year and went up to $3,400 this year, you paid $3,000 and $3,200, respectively, after the gambling reduction.
Yes, a $200 credit goes a lot further in some areas than others. And some might say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Taxpayers not only should look this horse in the mouth, they should put it out to pasture.
Our politicians used a cardsharp’s tricks to fool the public into believing that gambling would provide meaningful relief from onerous property taxes.
Taxpayers weren’t completely bamboozled, however. They overwhelmingly rejected another part of the scheme that would have enabled school districts to raise the wage tax in exchange for lower property taxes funded by casino revenues.
The Legislature lacks the fortitude and the integrity to address the real cause of skyrocketing property taxes -soaring school spending. It irresponsibly increased already generous pensions for teachers and other school employees, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for a whopping tax increase to make up for pension fund losses. The bailout could cost the average homeowner more than $1,300 over the next three years, according to one projection.
The state has imposed other onerous mandates on local districts, among them prohibiting teacher layoffs to reduce spending and granting school employees the right to strike with little or no penalty.
State Rep. Paul Clymer, a fervent opponent of legalized gambling, said in 2004 that the promise of tax relief was just a charade to justify slot machines. “I’ve said all along that it’s bogus to call this tax reform,” he said then.
The passage of time has proven Clymer right.
Bucks County Courier Times