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1/28/2017 2:34 pm  #1


The grassroots movement to eliminate property taxes in Pennsylvania

A long article so hit the link to read all of it.

The grassroots movement to eliminate property taxes in Pennsylvania


http://www.cityandstatepa.com/content/grassroots-movement-eliminate-property-taxes-pennsylvania

David Baldinger is eating a slice of pizza inside an Italian restaurant outside of Reading when his cellphone rings. The balding, 70-year-old cancer survivor’s eyes light up as he listens to the voice on the other end. It’s state House Majority Leader Dave Reed’s office. They’d like to set up a meeting, please.Baldinger, a retired radio and TV producer, is quick to animation and articulation in a way that belies his age, but nothing outwardly differentiates him from any other guy in the pizza shop.

His phone’s caller ID is the only indication that he leads Pennsylvania’s most powerful grassroots anti-tax coalition and is the public face of a legislative push to make it the first state to abolish property taxes.“There’s no such thing as property tax reform; there is no such thing as property tax relief,” he said. “It’s the only tax we have that isn’t based on your ability to pay. We just need to get rid of it.”

His group, the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition, and its mission to eliminate the state’s largest source of school funding, once elicited eye rolls in Harrisburg when they first began lobbying legislators 13 years ago. Today, politicians are calling him – a testament to his group’s organizing and advocacy, he said. Baldinger believes his organization is on the cusp of a great victory.“If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen in 2017 – the system has just gotten out of hand,” he said in a deep voice that harkens back to his days in Philadelphia-area radio. “The media doesn’t want to talk about it, but people want it.”

The “it” is House Bill 76 and Senate Bill 76, legislation Baldinger frequently refers to as “our bill” and for which he takes personal credit for co-authoring. It’s a sweeping proposal that would eliminate more than $14 billion in school property taxes, replacing that revenue by increasing the state income tax to 4.95 percent and the state sales tax to 7 percent – 61 percent and 17 percent increases, respectively.To hear Baldinger tell it, the shift will transform Pennsylvania into an economic Xanadu, reversing years of population decline and job losses in many parts of the state, while unburdening homeowners buffeted by constant property tax increases. The state will actually collect more tax revenue in the long run, tax abolitionists like Baldinger say, by abandoning a system he describes as antiquated and regressive.

As Baldinger puts it, the legislation would “turn the whole state into a Keystone Opportunity Zone” – a reference to geographically-specific tax breaks meted out by the state.Across the table from Baldinger sit the heads of two allied organizations: Ron Boltz, a burly, crewcut electronic technician who heads Pennsylvania Liberty Alliance, and Jim and Sue Rodkey, the husband-and-wife team behind The Lebanon 9-12 Project. Boltz said that while conservative groups like his have helped propel SB 76 forward, property tax elimination is a bipartisan issue.“The studies show that it's going to be economically prosperous for you whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or a Libertarian,” he said. “This bill will treat every single taxpayer exactly the same way.

It’s no longer going to be based on your ZIP code.”For those unfamiliar with the movement, this talk often seems like exactly that: tableside chatter about a proposal too radical to ever be taken seriously. Indeed, for years, PTCC was mostly humored by many legislators. Receptive members such as state Sen. Dave Argall, state Rep. Jim Cox and former state Rep. Sam Rohrer were in the minority.Later, after Baldinger has finished his lunch and left his compatriots behind, he drives back home in a pickup truck marked with two SB 76 stickers on the tailgate.

Standing in his driveway in the frigid January weather, he reflects on his battle with lung cancer. He survived the disease, but during his darkest moments, he was forced to put the Rodkeys in charge of the PTCC and watch the 2015 SB 76 vote from a hospital bed.“ This is what keeps me alive now,” Baldinger said.


Earlier this month, the governor’s office sent City & State a statement for this article that read, in part, that Wolf “could support taking steps towards elimination.” Just a week later, the governor told Philadelphia Inquirer business columnist Joe DiStefano, “I am for elimination of the property tax.”


 “We hold these truths to be self-evident,”  former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”

 
 

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