Prosperity

New Year, New Taxes in Pennsylvania

  • Elizabeth Stelle
  • January 15, 2025

Originally published at RealClearPennsylvania The new year is always a great opportunity to shed vices like smoking and binge eating. For state and local lawmakers, their guilty pleasure tends…

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High taxes make for a slow-growing economy. And communities feel the pinch of high taxes as more and more native Pennsylvanians leave the Keystone State to prosper elsewhere. To remain economically competitive, Pennsylvania must lower state taxes and ensure businesses have the opportunity to succeed. Lower taxes will incentivize more individuals to call Pennsylvania their home, ultimately spurring our statewide economy forward.

State Budget

The High Cost of Fiscally Responsible Compassion

  • June 8, 2004

For the naysayers of disciplined and effective government spending, the Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee has published “Republican Stewardship of State Government: 1995-2003.” Complete with a tagline, “Meeting the Challenge with…

Commentary

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Education

Pennsylvania Needs School Board Rent Control

  • Matthew Brouillette
  • June 2, 2004

Pennsylvanians are once again being reminded this spring that they never actually own their homes; they only “rent” them from their local school board. As school districts across the commonwealth…

Commentary

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Education

Referendum: School Taxes

  • May 11, 2004

Pennsylvania homeowners lack the right to vote on school property tax increases, while citizens in 44 other states enjoy some form of taxpayer protection. As Pennsylvania legislators debate whether or…

Fact Sheet

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Taxes & Economy

Closing Loopholes to Tighten the Noosehole

  • April 21, 2004

Two leading Pennsylvania House Democrats are taking aim at the Commonwealth’s surviving corporate taxpayers. Reps. Mike Veon and David Levdansky say that legal provisions in the tax code—“loopholes” in their…

Commentary

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Regulation

“OutFORCING”: Pennsylvania’s Real Job Loss Culprit

  • Matthew Brouillette
  • April 12, 2004

There’s been a great deal of political talk this election season about greedy “Benedict Arnold” companies sending jobs overseas. Gov. Ed Rendell even announced that the Commonwealth would look unfavorably…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Taxpayers to Subsidize Risks of Venture Capitalists

  • March 31, 2004

As the Republican-led Pennsylvania General Assembly considers a “compromise” version of Gov. Ed Rendell’s so-called “economic stimulus” package, The Commonwealth Foundation declared it to be another step backward for the…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Pennsylvania’s Great Rail Disasters

  • February 24, 2004

Every Pennsylvanian agrees that traffic congestion and air pollution are hardly good or desirable things for our cities. But there is much less agreement on what strategies should be used…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Bail on These Bonds

  • Matthew Brouillette
  • February 9, 2004

If Pennsylvania is the next state to tax, borrow or spend its way to prosperity, it will also be the first. The historical and economic reality is that government is…

Commentary

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Health Care

Diagnosis Litigation

  • Matthew Brouillette
  • February 1, 2004

Despite a number of obstacles limiting access to affordable insurance, America’s healthcare system remains the envy of the world. But as the current medical malpractice insurance epidemic raging across the…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Hang Up on the Cell Phone Tax!

  • December 9, 2003

Pennsylvania policymakers frequently talk about building and nurturing a hightech economy in the Commonwealth—yet the latest effort to raise taxes on the wireless telephone industry reveals that many of them…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Restore the First Amendment at Shippensburg University

  • October 24, 2003

While the pursuit of diversity at our state and nation’s universities is frequently discussed by journalists and academics, its reach has not been all-encompassing. Indeed, diversity of opinion, and even…

Commentary

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Taxes & Economy

Hunting for Taxpayers: Pennsylvania’s Big Game Sport

  • September 17, 2003

This fall, the newest Cabela’s outdoor superstore—described by a company marketing specialist as “a retail store wrapped up in a museum wrapped up in a restaurant”—opened in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Commentary

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Public Union Democracy

More “Takers” Than “Makers”

  • August 27, 2003

Another Labor Day is upon us, but the organized labor union movement in Pennsylvania has very little to celebrate this year. Union membership in the private sector continues its decades…

Commentary

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