The good news is that any number of severance tax proposals in Pennsylvania are still “stalled” and going nowhere fast. The bad news is that there still is not a finalized budget. Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They passed an unbalanced, whopping $32 billion state budget plan months ago–without a way to pay for it all. Which has set up extreme pressure to adopt new taxes, including a severance tax and gross receipts tax. It appears that the GRT is dead, but the severance tax is not yet totally dead. Why? Because House Speaker Mike Turzai continues to hold the line–preventing a floor vote on the severance tax. Pin a medal on that man! Elect him as your next governor! He knows how to lead. However, since the severance tax is not totally dead (yet), we feel it’s necessary to keep talking about it. We’ve heard from some MDN readers who ask, “Why not adopt a small severance tax? It’s not all that bad, is it?” Yes! It is bad! And the Commonwealth Foundation (of PA) tells us why…
The good news is that any number of severance tax proposals in Pennsylvania are still “stalled” and going nowhere fast. The bad news is that there still is not a finalized budget. Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They passed an unbalanced, whopping $32 billion state budget plan months ago–without a way to pay for it all. Which has set up extreme pressure to adopt new taxes, including a severance tax and gross receipts tax. It appears that the GRT is dead, but the severance tax is not yet totally dead. Why? Because House Speaker Mike Turzai continues to hold the line–preventing a floor vote on the severance tax. Pin a medal on that man! Elect him as your next governor! He knows how to lead. However, since the severance tax is not totally dead (yet), we feel it’s necessary to keep talking about it. We’ve heard from some MDN readers who ask, “Why not adopt a small severance tax? It’s not all that bad, is it?” Yes! It is bad! And the Commonwealth Foundation (of PA) tells us why…