Budget Battle
June 23, 2010

Hi, I’m Gene Barr, vice president of the Pennsylvania Chamber. Welcome to this month’s PA Chamber Minute.

June at the state Capitol is typically hectic and often unpredictable. Lawmakers are negotiating in the midst of the budget debate, and things can change quickly. Proposed tax increases that might be off the table one day could be back on the next.

Adding to this is an all-out assault on Pennsylvania’s job creators by numerous anti-business groups seeking to advance an agenda of higher taxes and bigger government.

Recently, the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union and other labor groups joined forces to push for numerous tax increases in the 2010-2011 budget. Their call for combined reporting; new taxes on natural gas extraction and smokeless tobacco; increased taxes on cigarettes; and the removal of the sales tax vendor collection allowance, makes it clear they haven’t met a tax they don’t like.

While most Pennsylvania families and job creators have had to live within their means during difficult economic times, this coalition obviously believes that state government shouldn’t have to do the same. The group wants the additional revenue to expand pet programs, reinforcing the tax-and-spend mindset that has been the hallmark of the Rendell administration and its supporters.

Even the lobbying organization PennFuture has gotten into the act, straying from its detrimental brand of anti-business environmentalism to be a vocal supporter of job crushing taxes on business, and again, bigger and more government programs.

Along the way, their campaigns of misinformation promote an agenda that will harm efforts to restore jobs lost to the recession, create new job opportunities and encourage long-term economic growth.

Fortunately, many state lawmakers are listening to job creators’ message. The governor’s plan to expand the sales tax to include business professional services is currently off the table, and legislative support for combined reporting appears to be waning as well.

However, there are a number of tax increases still under consideration, and as previously mentioned, nothing is certain until the budget is signed.

Pennsylvania cannot tax, spend and mandate itself to prosperity.

You can be assured that the Pennsylvania Chamber is working on your behalf to deliver this message to lawmakers. We are engaging our members and the general public in the fight for fiscal restraint and a state budget that will allow full economic recovery and job creation to occur.

And it is with your support that we are able to do so.

Thank you for your membership and thank you for spending a minute of your time with the Pennsylvania Chamber…The Statewide Voice of Business.