GOP wants to cut Pa. income tax rate

The federal government is "spurring" the economy by sending me a check this Spring, why does the state of PA need to do this as well? I strongly disagree with the premise that sending people checks in the mail is good for the economy in anything but a super short-term pathetic injection. How about PA takes its extra 500 million dollars and helps out those people that are getting foreclosed on or increases education about getting a home loan in the first place? How about directly helping out small businesses that are going to be struggling under the impending recession? How about saving the extra money for a rainy day? Please, do not give me and all my brethren an extra $100 that we can go out and spend at Walmart and thereby fix the economy. I am a firm believer in the tried and true method of saving behind the scenes. My paycheck is never cashed at the bank. It's deposited and anything over my budget is immediately portioned off to savings accounts and investment accounts. My rainy day funds have saved me many times - like for when my water bill started jumping in Pittsburgh this year or my insane heating bills this winter or when my car needed all new tires.

Lastly, thanks to the good old GOP for offering to cut my income taxes at the expense of welfare. "GOP lawmakers also said there is wasted spending in welfare payments for low-income people's Medicaid costs and for cash payments made under the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program." How is money to Medicaid wasted money??? How about we actually fund adultBasic, a great sounding program to give affordable health care to adults in PA not making much money which has an average waiting list time of more than a year!

Please, PA don't throw away our money. Bad times are coming in the country, and in this state in particular. Nothing makes that more clearer than looking at these charts.

(reference: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08106/873328-178.stm)

Silent Lies from the Suckup Committee

I just finished reading the city-county merger recommendation. I was hoping for a real examination of the situation with number crunching, pie charts, and a semblance of a worthwhile use of my time. Unfortunately, it's a fluffy piece pandering to the current and previous administrations that appears to make its recommendation based on previous invalid recommendations.

I can't help but be reminded of a recent quote of Mark Twain's that I read regarding American reviews. "We are too good-natured a race; we hate to say the unpleasant thing; we shrink from speaking the unkind truth about a poor fellow whose bread depends upon our verdict; so we speak of his good points only, thus not scrupling to tell a lie - a silent lie - for in not mentioning his bad ones we as good as say he hasn't any. The only difference that I know of between a silent lie and a spoken one is, that the silent lie is a less respectable one than the other." The committee report is full of useless silent lies, obscuring the picture of our city and county government and using up space where they appear to have no other valid items to say.

Silent lies?
"Committee members shared a genuine sense of gratitude to the Mayor and County Chief Executive for inviting them to participate in this important undertaking."

"The reporting of that record, then, should not be viewed as a criticism of the current Mayor and County Chief Executive."

"The current County Chief Executive and Mayor deserve great credit for pushing these processes forward."

"These deficits grew over the course of many years and were not produced by the practices of the current City administration."

"... we do genuinely respect the elected leaders who brought us together and gave us our charge."

We get it! You appreciate the current administration that clearly hand-picked you. This 15-page report really doesn't need to mention it more than 5 times!

And just to make sure that they weren't neglecting to pander to previous administrations, they had to also mention the late Mayor: "Allegheny County Chief Executive Onorato and the late City of Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O’Connor generally are credited with forging this long-overdue agreement. Nothing should detract from their ultimately successful commitment to that effort."

Instead of convincing me with logic and facts, I see a report that is preaching to the already believing choir. Being a new citizen of Pittsburgh, I have no idea what the right path forward is, and this report only makes me more confused.

I read that in 1929 the people of Pittsburgh voted by a majority to consolidate the government but that it didn't happen at that time because of a "technicality". However, I feel that the city of Pittsburgh has almost nothing in common currently with the city of 1929, and so I have to completely disregard all references to that historical note even though the committee felt the need to drone on about it for a few paragraphs.

I read that a committee met in 1996 and performed a study. They recommended that there be consolidation of services. However, I do not read any of the reasoning, merely the results. I have a sneaking suspicion that this previous study also did not rely on facts and logic.

In 2008, '... a RAND study commissioned by the Advisory Committee generally concluded that “the case for or against consolidation will have to be made on grounds other than incontrovertible scientific evidence."' It appears the grounds they chose were silent lies.

Hopefully, there will be more debate coming from this issue in future weeks and months. For now, I'm concerned about the merger as a city dweller. I'm concerned that it means I will have less of a say in my city government. I'm concerned that the needs of the city will be overrun by the needs of the suburbs. I'm concerned that Dan Onorato will have even more power and will disregard the will of the people even more. In theory, the concept of merging duplicative services sounds like a great idea. I hope someone does some research about it and presents that research to the people of Metro Pittsburgh.


(For reference, the report can be found here: http://www.pitt.edu/news/citycountyreport.pdf)

Countdown to Return

So in two weeks, I will be returning to the country and one of the things I have missed the most is following the antics of Pittsburgh construction, taxes, and politics. Anything exciting happen in the last 2 months? Perhaps a giant pothole swallowed a bus? non-profits are paying taxes? pigs are flying?

On Hiatus

Out of Pittsburgh till April, so this blog won´t really be updated in the meantime unless Luke makes the newspapers in Central America.

If you can´t resist reading more of my words, check out: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/jettplane

News flash: Road construction does not promote clean air quality.

Allegheny County, you fine industries for air quality violations. Then you try to use that money for road construction. Thanks for the watchdog County Manager, Jim Flynn, who questioned this appropriateness.

Thanks also for the Post-Gazette for at least publishing this, but I rescind that thanks for your lackluster ball-busting of the County. For instance, any particular elected officials that I can insult for recommending this use of the money? Your terse article is definitely missing concrete details.

I guess I should be happy that the new drink tax hasn't been ear-marked for this "public transportation" problem.

(reference: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08009/847875-100.stm )

40% - 50% what's the difference?

To most people parking in garages in Pittsburgh, there is no difference.

The state has threatened to withhold funding to the city of Pittsburgh if the city doesn't continue dropping the parking tax, presumably to save money for consumers. Unfortunately, the parking garages (aside from the parking authority) are steadfast in refusing to lower their rates correspondingly. Why are they doing this? Supply and demand. They have full lots at their current prices, so they're not going to lower their rates. Frankly, I'm surprised they don't just keep raising them.

Anyone else notice how much we need more parking (or more public transportation) in the city of Pittsburgh? I've only once made the mistake of attempting to drive into the city of Pittsburgh and park on a weekday. I was trying to go to my closest DMV station to get my license changed to a PA license. After a frustrated hour or so driving around to various full lots, I gave up and went to the suburbs. To those who say this city is dead/dying, have you tried to park in the city on a weekday??

Where am I rambling to here? There should be a goldmine for building another parking garage in the city of Pittsburgh. Investment Opportunity #342 after I get myself some venture capital.

Of course, the city does die at night while everyone flees to suburbia and leaves me plenty of free street parking for a night on the town checking out the Harris theater or the Gallery Crawl or just walking around enjoying the city and being happy I moved here.

Bribery?

They're expecting an extra $50,000 in the county coffers after Saturday's Steelers game from the new drink tax. Just at Heinz field. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08004/846627-85.stm)

Couldn't help but notice Onorato publicly bribing municipalities to give up their own police departments... (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08003/846347-85.stm)

I wonder where he's getting the money to do that? But certainly it's just a fortunate mistake that the drink tax is estimated to bring in WAY more money than is needed to bail out Port Authority.