July 5, 2007

Dear Editor:

I wrote last month in the anticipation that the Stop Taxing Our Properties (STOP) plan may come up for a vote in the Pennsylvania Legislature. The STOP legislation has been around for approximately three years and, Pennsylvania citizens will be disappointed to know that once again, despite repeated promises, our lawmakers have failed us.

I was in contact with Senator Logan who DID reintroduce the plan in the Senate and it was referred to a committee on June 24th according to the Senate website. Despite my earlier enthusiasm, Representative McCall’s promise to bring the measure to a vote in June did not come to fruition and I can’t find that STOP has even been re-introduced in the House this session. If I am in error, someone please send me the Bill Number as it is not available on the General Assembly website.

Why someone would be against eliminating ALL property taxes (not just school property taxes) on the homes people live in is beyond me. We have two leaders in adjacent counties here, Rep. McCall & Rep. Argall, who are their respective party Whips and every two years run for re-election on their seniority and leadership credentials claiming to have the clout necessary to get things done. Yet a property tax plan that is doable and that has been around for a number of years can’t be brought up for a vote before their two-month session break. The state budget deadline is not a viable excuse - it comes every year and this plan has preceded three budgets now without adoption.

I noticed that on June 27th Rep. Argall put out a preemptive press release in anticipation of this follow-up letter saying he now supports the plan (which he did not say in his last election campaign, rather he criticized his opponent for supporting it) and that the STOP plan is now being "reconciled" with the Commonwealth Caucus Plan by a bi-partisan group of legislators. How long are things going to be "reconciled" and this type of stalling take place?

No matter which party controls which chamber of the Pennsylvania Legislature, nothing has gotten done to eliminate ALL property taxes on people’s homes. We have "self-proclaimed leaders that we have consistently re-elected in the Carbon/Schuylkill area. Since this keeps happening, one possible conclusion is that people in this area aren’t concerned about eliminating their own property taxes and perhaps are just happy to just get grants for recycling and facade improvements while our lawmakers and Governor continue to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate welfare to billion dollar corporations and individuals like owners of professional sports teams, ComCast, and PNC Bank.

And it’s just a coincidence that those associated with the like contribute huge sums of money to political campaigns of our elected officials, right?

I don’t even own a home, but it isn’t it about time for a Keystone Opportunity Zone for those who do?

I hope that Mr. Henry Woods (who commented on my last letter) and I aren’t the only ones disappointed with the lack of progress on the elimination of ALL property taxes for homeowners. That is certainly not what I hear daily but the results from the ballot box speak differently.

In closing- Keep doing what you’ve always done, and you’ll keep getting what’ve you always got…in this instance- NO MEANINGFUL PROPERTY TAX RELIEF.

Michael J. Polyak
Tamaqua, PA 18252

July 14, 2007

All we read about in the newspapers and see on television are stories about the number of jobs that our politicians have created, about their efforts to lower property taxes, what they are doing to stop the dumping and what they are doing about our cancer and other health problems.

The truth is the politicians’ claims about the number of jobs created are greatly exaggerated; our property taxes are constantly increasing; we are forever being assaulted with contaminated, hazardous and toxic wastes from outside the county; and our cancer rates continue to climb.

One reason for our continued problems is that our politicians have their priorities screwed up. First and foremost, they care about their own political careers. Second, they care about their political parties. Third, they care about their financial supporters, especially lobbyists. If there is anything left over, and there seldom is, it goes to their constituents who are at the bottom of their list.

Politicians showed that they place their own political careers first when they voted for their illegal pay raises. On July 7, 2005, they gave themselves a 16% to 34% pay increase. The vote took place at two in the morning without public review or commentary and Governor Rendell signed the bill into law.

Second, our politicians care about their political parties. For example, both elected Republicans and Democrats place fundraising for their respective parties near the top of their priorities. Why do local politicians spend time in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Erie, etc. raising funds for their parties? Shouldn’t they first be spending more time working for their constituents on property tax relief, stopping the dumping, gaining more local control, and getting the government to do something about the cancer and other health problems in our area? However, fundraising means advancement within the party and that is more important than tending to the needs of their constituents.

Third, they care about their financial supporters, especially lobbyists. Did you ever notice that when an industrial project that is scheduled to receive government support is threatened, the politicians come out of the woodwork to get full funding returned to the project? If you look into their political contributions, you will see that the owners of the project or their lobbyists were heavy contributors to the politicians. If the politicians worked half as hard for us as they do for their contributors and lobbyists, there really would be job creation, elimination of property taxes, elimination of the dumping and real investigations into the causes and prevention of our cancers and other health related problems.

There are 203 members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and 50 members of the Senate. Based on our election results, it is safe to say that we believe that the other 202 representatives and 49 senators are the cause of the problem and not our representative and senator. The truth is that our elected officials are just as guilty as the other members of the General Assembly. Yet, we continue to reelect these ineffective officials. We must conclude that we are to blame for allowing such a deterioration of our present system of government into such a system of disrepair.

We have the to solve all of our problems if we would just use it. The next time there is an election, we should vote the bums out and give someone else a chance. Get off of your couch, put down your beer and vote. We should continue to throw the bums out until we get people who are willing to place the concerns of their constituents first. Anything less would be ridiculous.

Posted July 20, 2007

Our government is giving free money to polluters. In an effort to reduce our dependence on oil, Congress has provided tax credits for the synthetic-fuel or synfuel industry. However, synfuel is defined as nothing more than coal or waste coal sprayed with almost anything, such as diesel fuel, pine-tar resin, limestone or even hazardous waste. This magical process for transforming coal or waste coal into synfuel is referred to as "spray and pray."

The use of synfuel is not a new energy resource. It is simply a way for the coal industry to collect huge tax subsidies at our expense. Time Magazine www.time.com has estimated that 55 plants across the U.S. use coal or waste coal as synfuel in their operations and that between 2003 and 2005, the synfuel industry received $9 billion, that is with a “b,” in tax credits.