Posts Tagged → teachers union
One good reason to vote for Scott Perry
Scott Perry is the current congressman in Central PA. Has been for something like ten years, maybe twelve…fourteen? As political careers go, Scott is just about to enter the “been around a long time” category, a category I am normally leery of, because long term career politicians always lose touch with their constituents. They become institutions in their own right, and use that institutional hold to self-enrich, while hardly ever doing The People’s business.
Career politicians usually slide into cruise control mode and make pretend about doing something, bloviating, and then go on long vcations.
The fact that Scott has to work hard and campaign hard in a competitive district in order to hold on to his seat is a good thing. It is good for him, because it keeps him honest and responsive, and because it forces him to listen to his constituents. It is good for us, his constituents.
Scott Perry has several different reputations, some I understand and some I just do not understand. Some of these are well-earned, for better and for worse, and some are just bitch-and-moan partisan politics, which I categorially reject. I can say that I have had conversations with Scott where we disagreed, and where we agreed.
One of his good (I think) reputations is as an independent maverick, an independent thinker, his own man, who operates away from political party oversight and control. It is this way of conducting himself that has earned him my vote.
Where each political party has its own constellation of circling sycophantic self-interested parasite groups, say, teacher’s unions for the Democrats and tobacco for Republicans (it is a toss-up which is worse for you, the teacher’s union or constant tobacco use), the unusually rare career political reps like Scott Perry have constructed their own unique support network that is tailored to their own/ his own unique way of advocating and voting. Their financial and political support structure is by nececssity grass roots, organic, natural, and personal. Not the kind of massive, illegal Communist Chinese support that officials like Mitch McConnell (R-KY) get. Or the massive, illegal Islamic Republic of Iran support that Barack Obama (D-Kenya) got.
Over the spring and summer, Congressman Perry did something that few other elected officials in either party did: He opposed Flock Cameras. Wow. This is a brave thing to do, especially in an election year. Takes real conviction and principle for any politician to take a stand against such a political and financial behemoth as Flock Cameras.
Something so powerful, that promises so much (fake) security, what could go wrong, right?
What are Flock Cameras? For those readers living in a cave (welcome to my own cave here, by the way, proud to say it) or in Rio Linda, and who do not know what Flock Cameras are, here is my perception of them:
Flock Cameras are a high technology evil portal to Hell, where, while of and on this earth, they are combining with artificial intelligence (nothing super about that, yet) to quickly bring the end of a free and Constitutional America and usher in the age of robot warfare against humans.
We have already seen the dystopian futuristic movies and read the books they are based on (1984, THX1138, Terminator, etc), to know what an all-seeing anti-privacy robot eye can do to humanity, to you. Well, Flock Cameras are the watching all-seeing surveillance eye sent by Satan to control us. This is no hyperbole, and it is refreshing to see that American citizens of all mindsets and policy thinking are now coalescing around opposing Flock Cameras.
And while lots and lots of elected officials in America were taking Flock Cameras cash, some above board and some apparently undisclosed, and signing very very illegal Non-Disclosure Agreements with the company so it could set up in thousands of communities around America, Scott Perry was one of the few, one of the early voices among elected officials, to say STOP THIS.
Scott Perry is up for election in a month. Some things he promotes I do not agree with, some things he votes for or submits legislation on I do agree with, such as his official opposition to Flock Cameras. Such a love-hate relationship is healthy with elected officials and constituents alike. But then again, this is the thinking person’s approach to politics and policy. People who are trained seals clapping and barking for their partisan “team” will not understand this kind of critical thinking approach to life.
If you are a central PA voter trying to figure out whether to vote for Scott Perry, I recommend voting Yes. If for no other reason he had the balls and principle to stand apart from the big money pack and stake out policy territory popular with The People, but unpopular with elected officialdom. Scott said No to Flock Cameras, and he has thus earned my Yes vote next month.
A Severance Tax, now?
Talk about an addiction to spending other people’s money.
Yesterday in southeast PA, far away from the communities where this issue is most important and the citizens might not be so welcoming, Governor Tom Wolf staked out his position on creating a new 5% “severance tax” on natural gas from the Marcellus shale feature.
Right now, natural gas is selling at historic low prices, especially here in Pennsylvania. The financial incentive to drill more or spend more money to get more gas is very low, and drill rigs have been disappearing from across the region for a year.
The Saudis began dumping oil months ago, in an effort to punish competing oil producers Iran and Russia, with the secondary effect of dropping gasoline prices so low that the natural gas industry got hit from that side, too.
So now is not only a bad time for the gas industry, it is also a time of greatly diminished returns on investment and on royalties received. Scalping 5% off the top of that is punishing to everyone, including gas consumers, who will see their rates increase proportionally.
Here’s the biggest problem with a severance tax: Pennsylvania already has a 3% impact fee on Marcellus gas, and a Corporate Net Income Tax of 9.99% (let’s call it ten percent, OK?). Most of the other gas and oil producing states have no such additional taxes; their severance taxes are the one and only tax their oil and gas producers pay, not the multiple high taxes and fees drillers in PA pay.
Pennsylvania government is therefore already reaping much higher revenue from the gas industry than other gas producing states. That means that the companies doing business here are already burdened much more than elsewhere.
So adding a severance tax now, at this economically bad time, without commensurately lowering other taxes, or the existing Impact Fee, makes no sense. Unless the people promoting this have an infantile view of how America and business work.
And that right there is the problem. Way too many advocates for tax-and-spend policies like an additional severance tax have a Marxist view of business; essentially, to them, business exists to pour money into liberal schemes.
And speaking of spending, who believes that spending more and more and more taxpayer dollars on public schools, public teachers unions, and public teachers’ pensions, actually equates with better education?
So many studies disprove that (see the Mercatus Center), but it is a liberal mantra that taxpayers must spend ever more of their money to support public unions that support political liberals. And both parents of students and taxpayers alike now correctly see that system for what it is – simple, legalized political graft to fund one political party.
Public schools are mostly a disaster, yet teacher’s unions and their political buddies continue to pound on the table for more and more money. Homeowners are essentially now renting their houses from the teacher’s unions, and proposed laws like Act 76 seek to fix that unfair situation by removing the vampire fangs from homeowners and letting the larger society pay for its expenditure.
Going door-to-door for political races year after year, property tax has been the number one issue I have encountered among elderly homeowners. So many of them can no longer afford to pay the taxes on their houses, that they must sell them and move, despite a lifetime of investing in them. This is patently un-American and unfair.
So Tom Wolf is moving in exactly the opposite direction we need on this subject, and instead of trying to fix the tax situation, he seeks to make it worse. To be fair, Wolf campaigned on raising taxes. He just needs to remember that he did not get elected by voters who want higher taxes, they wanted to fire former governor Tom Corbett.