Beware the Tax Wolf in sheep’s clothing!

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Mike Shortall

Had a great idea for a Tom Corbett campaign commercial that highlighted the Tax & Spend philosophy of Tom Wolf, the Democrat’s candidate in the Pennsylvania Governor’s race. Wolf looks to unseat Corbett in this November’s election that is chock full of Republican opportunities locally, state-wide, and across the country.

The setting for the commercial is some nondescript social event … a party, fund-raiser, art exhibit, etc. Men and women are socializing – shown on camera from the neck down – in relaxed conversation, distracted somewhat from the goings-on around them.

The female narrator describes the plans Mr. Wolf has for Pennsylvania’s fiscal and economic future under a potential Wolf administration. As she does, a man in a business suit, haphazardly cloaked in the pelt of a woolly sheep, circulates among the distracted party-goers.

As the announcer intones …

“Tom Wolf wants to fully fund the poorly managed Philadelphia School District.”

The man in sheep’s clothing slips a hand into a woman’s pocketbook and pulls out a wad of cash.

“Tom Wolf defines the taxable rich as any individual who earns more than $90,000 per year, and he targets them for significant income tax increases!”

The sheep-Wolf adroitly slips a wallet from a male patron’s back pocket.

“Tom Wolf wants to add severance tax for natural gas job creators who already pay Impact Fees. But guess who will really pay that tax in higher retail prices?!?”

And the Wolf extracts a money clip from a man’s jacket pocket.

Tom Wolf’s economic plan for Pennsylvania

Then the camera pans up, to reveal a smiling sheepskin-clad Tom Wolf, gloating over a thick wad of cash.

The wolf-in-sheepskin concept is particularly apropos, given Tom Wolf’s repeated attempts to portray himself as one of us; caring about our jobs and home finances; and fretting over property taxes and pensions, when in fact, he’s more a 1%’er than even Allyson Schwartz!

Certainly you can slip a few more warnings into this message, such as Wolf’s plans for significant increases in personal income tax rates, or what higher taxes might mean in fewer employment opportunities (i.e. jobs), or how Wolf’s failure to acknowledge the Public Pension problem will continue to exert upward pressure on local Property Taxes.

By the time the commercial fades to ” … and I endorse this message”, you have a political crime spree to challenge the legends of Bonnie & Clyde and Henry Hill’s buddies from Goodfellas!

Unfortunately, this Wolf commercial never made it from Cranky Man-conception to Tom Corbett’s campaign, but they created several good Wolf-themed ads of their own. Their most effective ad portrayed Pennsylvania citizens “longing” to pay more in taxes. Effective because it focuses on working people. who scrimp to make every dollar last just a bit longer, and highlighting what a Tom Wolf-led State administration would cost them.

Getting Tom Wolf to give details on his taxing and economic plans for Pennsylvania is like trying to nail down smoke. He claims that only after a detailed look at Pennsylvania’s financial books will he be able to tell you how high he will raise your taxes!

But wait! Didn’t Tom Wolf serve as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Revenue?!? Has he not kept abreast of State financial conditions before he decided to run for Governor on a higher-taxes-are-fundamental platform? How believable is it really that Tom Wolf has insufficient information to form a rudimentary picture of Pennsylvania’s economic health?

What exactly is Tom Wolf afraid of???

He’s afraid that Pennsylvanians will get a look at the real Tax Wolf under all that fluffy Professor Middle Class sheepskin!

To figure out the high cost of a Tom Wolf Pennsylvania start by adding up the Democrat’s Wish List:

Raise the Personal Income tax rate for everyone from the current 3.07% to potentially 5% since Pennsylvania’s constitution prohibits charging one group – i.e. The Rich (i.e. anyone making over just $90,000 a year) – more than anyone else.
- This means, if your Employer withholds State Income Taxes and you fit under the anticipated $90,000 Rich Bracket, you might have the “pleasure” of watching The State earn interest on YOUR money while you wait until Tax Season to recoup what you can through the refund process!
Replacing $1 billion in “education cuts” the Democrats disingenuously claim Governor Corbett imposed on Pennsylvania schools.
- You must – of course – ignore The Big Lie of the Democrat’s campaign vs. the truth of the loss of federal stimulus funding.
- Also turn a blind eye to the fact that Governor Corbett has increased Education funding by $1 billion since taking office in 2011.
Accepting the Affordable Care Act “deal” to expand Medicaid, despite the fact that the federal government will only fund the added obligation to 90% of costs after 2016.
- No doubt Tom Wolf will break a hip jumping onto the Obamacare Medicaid-expansion wagon!
- Projected cost: $1 billion in FY15-16; climbing to $4.1 billion by 2021.
Fully fund the poorly managed School District of Philadelphia: Despite the approval of a cigarette tax increase and changes (Finally!) to the financing of the teacher’s union healthcare program, the SPD still faces an $8 million deficit that remains from the 2014 fiscal year and $70 million shortfall for fiscal year 2015.
- All this after SDP borrowed $300 million over the past 2 years.
- What are the chances this problem goes away even if the SDP is “fully funded”?
Refusing to address the Public Pension crisis, which currently consumes 63% of all State revenues to cover EXISTING State and local pension obligations!
- Wolf says he will make up the $50-65 Billion in pension shortfall by “rearranging budget priorities” (i.e. less money for things the State really needs, then raising taxes again in the future to cover any shortfall in services funding)
- Cost of bridging the Pension Gap: $1300. per Pennsylvanian!

So what is Tom Wolf’s plan for paying for this Wish List? Higher taxes, of course! As early as 2007, Wolf – as Rendell’s Secretary of Revenue – testified about the need to raise State Income Taxes.

Tax increases seem to be a constant Tom Wolf theme. Yet aside from raising severance taxes for the Natural Gas Industry (NGI), Wolf is actually committed to reducing Corporate Tax Rates.

Huh?

That’s right! While Wolf is raising Income Taxes on you, he will look to reduce the tax burden of Corporations!

Consider then who will actually pay for that natural gas Severance Tax! (Hint: It won’t be the NGI!) The NGI will simply pass those costs on to you – the Consumer – in the prices you pay for natural gas in your home and for those products that rely on natural gas for their manufacture!

Taxes, taxes, taxes … More paid by you and less paid by most Pennsylvania corporations!

Tom Wolf as Governor? Not exactly Pennsylvania’s Middle Class Dream now, is it?!?

PA Attorney General Kane gets taken to the wood shed

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Mike Shortall

The story of Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane and the political corruption case she punted for reasons, which – if nothing else – have not as yet been explained to the satisfaction of anyone, just gets juicier and juicier.

Bad enough Kathleen Kane is being subjected to much second-guessing, her decision a head-scratching confusion; now she’s taking fire from a much disgusted fellow Democrat in Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Willliams. In an opinion piece published in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Williams comes out swinging in defense of those who now work for him.

It’s a telling piece that throws even more doubt on the decision and Kane’s behavior in reaction to what should have been predictable and anticipated criticism.

Among Williams points revealed in Sunday’s op-ed (my editorials):

Williams confirms that the corruption case’s lead investigator, an African-American (such a distinction should not be necessary in almost any other situation) confirmed to Williams that racial targeting was never a direction of the sting operation.
Kane’s office was not in possession of the case files when she took office. (Appearances suggest that Kane specifically demanded return of the files from the FBI before summarily acting to destroy the investigation and trove of case work.)
Kane’s reasoning for dumping the case due to the questionable deal given to undercover informant, Tyrone B. Ali, suggests the State AG has little appreciation for how such cases have been prosecuted successfully over-and-over again. (How can that be the case for someone who acted as Assistant D.A. in Lackawanna County for 12 years?!? Hmmmm … Maybe only if you never actually prosecuted anything?)
Williams is incredulous that Kane would hire personal lawyers that would keep her from answering any questions the public is rightfully entitled to hear. (Why the veil of protection if a public servant is confident and – most of all – honest about her motivations and judgement? Not to mention the fact that Kane … is …. a … LAWYER! This among all the other mysteries connected with this fiasco reeks to high heaven in my humble opinion.)

Philadelphia D.A. Seth Williams

Perhaps Williams’ most damaging observation is that Kane has now sullied a tried and true technique used time and again by prosecutors ferreting out political corruption in the public arena. She has stated for all the world to hear that turning a criminal into an informant, where some quid pro quo to the operative is normally a condition of their cooperation, renders any subsequent testimony suspect.

This is not at all an unusual view on the suspect motivations for a criminal turned informant and expected to testify against those further targeted. Normally this would be a strategy for Defense Attorneys to attack at trial, not denounced in general as an investigative tool by those that prosecute.

As a defendant’s strategy it should be analyzed; weighed; and judged by criminal magistrates and juries of one’s peers. To have a State’s lead criminal prosecutor admit to such as a precursor to pressing any current or subsequent cases based on the same sort of ugly but sometimes necessary dirty work is simply incomprehensible!

Then to top off Kathy’s Day of Reckoning: Part 1 Frank Fina, the former State Prosecutor now working for Williams in the Philly D.A.’s office, challenges Kane to sit with him and The Inquirer to answer any and all questions posed in an effort to put this ridiculous episode to rest.

Fina fortifies his challenge by stating, “I have been a lawyer for 22 years, and a public servant for almost all of that time. I have not retained an attorney to advise me to speak, or to remain silent. I am an attorney.”

The question of course is exactly how large will Kathleen Kane’s legal entourage be … assuming she has the professional integrity to even show up?

Part 2 of Ms. Kane’s reckoning should rightfully occur when next she runs for re-election. She has already lost this vote from her first campaign!

Wrong about Kathleen Kane

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Mike Shortall

Staring down racism no one else sees

True confession: I have always been of the mind that having a Attorney General and Auditor from the minority party is not a bad thing in a two-party system. I always felt it kept balance in the equation by keeping the Majority honest.

That’s why – even as a Republican – I thought Kathleen Kane was a good choice for Pennsylvania’s Attorney General. I may have even voted for her, although that would have been based further on her track record as an Assistant DA in Lackawanna County.

Seems I was terribly wrong about her. She has turned out to be both weak and way beyond partisan!

Last week she dumped a years-long investigation into political corruption and reporting requirements that has all the telltale signs of partisan political protectionism veiled by insidious implications of racism that are not holding up to even the barest of scrutiny from the media. Not one individual cited as a source for such an egregious accusation will stand up and corroborate the charge.

Why was it “racist”? Well, because all of those ensnared were Democrats from Philadelphia … duh!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Kane resorted to labeling anyone who criticized her decision as “sexist”!

Whoa … Something just clicked!

Did Kane get help with her statement from The White House?!?

Found on the Democrats’ playlist

Think about it … Nothing they get wrong is ever their fault. Not the unpopularity of the poorly sold Affordable Care Act, not the Three Stooges rollout of healthcare.gov, not failed red lines in Syria, and certainly not the Crimea!

Either it’s President George W. Bush’s fault or it’s blamed on every social disorder known to man … racism, bullying (Republicans), income inequality, global warming/cooling/wetting/drying … (OK, make it Climate Change!) … etc., etc.

Sexism? Guess we’ll have to wait for Hillary “What difference – at this point – does it make?!?” Clinton. But that excuse will be close at hand, believe me!

Well, at least Kathleen Kane didn’t blame it on Putin!

For my part, I’m sorry I got this one wrong. I only wish I had someone else to blame …

Disenfranchised by Politics or Apathy?

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Mike Shortall

Judge Robert Simpson

Wednesday’s decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson to uphold the new Pennsylvania voter ID law was neither surprising nor was it the final word on the mater. Simpson’s decision is just the first step in a judicial review process that will definitely end up in Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court and perhaps even wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To make matters worse for those who oppose the law, Judge Simpson laid out a detailed, well-reasoned 70-page opinion supporting the Pennsylvania legislature’s power to regulate elections in this way, and refused to issue an injunction that would hold off implementation of the law’s requirements until the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania hears the inevitable appeal. Despite moving testimony from individuals who claimed unnecessary burdens to exercising their right to vote, Simpson found that the law applies equally to all Pennsylvanians in a politically neutral, non-discriminatory manner.

As a result, the law will be viewed as constitutional in Pennsylvania until such time as adequate proof can be mustered to support claims of discriminatory restriction. This is a daunting task for the critics. And even considering the normal route to challenge such laws in federal court as an affront to the Voting Rights Act, the law’s opponents face the reality that a similar law – applied by Indiana in 2008 – was found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Simpson’s ruling appears to remove the specter that the law’s requirements are too difficult to meet in the 5 months between its March 2012 passage and the November election. Opposition to the law attempted to feed just such a perception through tales of elderly and poor working class voters at the mercy of inconsistent documentation requirements and inadequately trained clerks in far off, hard to reach PENNDOT offices.

Victory on appeal is going to be a tough nut to crack now that Judge Simpson has laid out a solid footing for its constitutionality.

By now you have heard all the arguments; listened to the vitriol from those on both sides of the issue; gotten into a few heated discussions; and perhaps, came to decide for yourself whether Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law is a legitimate attempt to further secure our vote or a blatant attempt by one political party to gain an election year advantage over their opponents.

As I am often motivated to do in such cases where most of the obvious arguments have already been made, I suggest we leave legal wranglings to the judges, the lawyers, and the politicians; and instead, let’s take a look at how the law has affected voter and political behavior.

Philadelphia Councilman Bill Green

Already we have numerous election officials, exclusively Democrats, who now say they will not enforce the legally passed, Court-affirmed election law. From poll watchers to at least one Judge of Elections we hear from those who have decided to take interpretation of the law into their own hands and will not enforce the law. In Philadelphia, City Councilman Bill Green tweeted, “Let them come and enforce it! If WE believe it violates the Constitution, we have the RIGHT to keep our OATH.” (Emphasis added.)

And suddenly all those suspicions about urban politicians ginning up election numbers based on their own, personal interpretation of what is “constitutional” and lawful do not seem all that far-fetched.

Personally, I have been muttering for weeks over the inconsistent coverage the voter ID issue has received in local media. On television news, you rarely hear a word about the new law. Yet newspapers and on-line media outlets – like our local Patch network – have been a constant resource for discussions of the law’s requirements, the difficulties experienced in its execution, and in a lot of cases reader-fueled demagoguery over the motivations of both politicians and activists. All good stuff when it meshes with the goal promoting awareness of the new law and its requirements far in advance of Election Day.

On the other hand, my normal paper ‘n ink habit – The Philadelphia Inquirer – killed many a tree on some days running multiple articles from different perspectives, overwhelmingly in opposition to the voter ID law. That anyone would be surprised by that would be … well … surprising. And yet, even their attempts to portray the law as an onerous affront to voting rights provided an interesting peek at the REAL problem that should be scaring the bejesus out of Pennsylvania’s Democrats.

In a July 12 article, Karen Heller of The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that only 2744 Pennsylvanians had obtained new voter photo identification.

That’s only 0.28% (based on the most draconian predictions of 1 million potentially disenfranchised voters) have pursued the documentation and ID requirements to a successful conclusion. This phenomena cannot be attributed to any unreasonable level of documentation requirements, or even those claims that PENNDOT’s ID-issuing system is not up to the task.

0.28% … My own attempts to downplay the 1 million voter claim would bump that all the way up to 0.6%!

There is no doubt on my part that the claims of 1 million affected voters was way overstated. Yet by even the most conservative estimates, the response in active attempts to obtain the necessary ID goes beyond the definition of “anemic”. Even if one takes a leap of faith that new voter IDs issued before November grows by several orders of magnitude, the end result would fall woefully short of what anyone could define as an honest attempt on the part of the potentially disenfranchised to meet the law’s requirements.

0.28 % … It suggests rather loudly that not enough people care. That to them the effort isn’t worth it. What this says about the Pennsylvania electorate goes so much deeper than nefarious plots to influence the outcome of an election or the prospect of hundreds of illegal voters flooding inner city polling places. It’s an admission that many voters simply don’t care; don’t pay attention; and perhaps worse of all, don’t want to make any effort to comply with a simple authentication requirement.

0.28% = Not even trying …

Exaggerating the Pennsylvania Voter ID “crisis”

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Mike Shortall

Nelson Mandela expresses his views on Voter ID laws

The news sent shock waves throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the national political media networks. Over 700,000 Pennsylvanians lacked the most common, state-provided form of photo identification, meaning that over 9% of the Pennsylvania’s registered voters might be unable to vote in this year’s Presidential election!!

The claims of a voting rights armaggedon were prolific! Ten percent of registered Pennsylvanian voters would be turned away at the polls because they lacked photo ID! In Philadelphia, the numbers are supposedly TWICE as bad! The nefarious plot, born of Republican designs to defeat President Obama in November, was working to perfection! Woe is us! Democracy was D-E-A-D!!!

As you can see, I love an overabundance of exclamation points! It never really makes silly arguments any more plausible or intellectually honest; but it does gives the eyes a thrill. Best of all, it might even distract one from looking at what’s behind the numbers.

So let’s take a peek under the curtain.

The first statistic that jumps out is that 22% of those 758,000 Pennsylvania voters would statistically fall into the “inactive voter” category, meaning that they have not voted since 2007. In other words, these 170,000 Pennsylvanians have been sitting on their voting hands for at least 5 years. It also means – by the way – that not a single one of them bothered to vote in the 2008 Presidential election.

Frankly, I find that 22% to be well on the low side. From my own experience working on the polls in Horsham Township, the number of voters who do not bother to vote in even the most important presidential races is much closer to 40% than it is to 20%. A 22% inactive voter rate would conversely suggest a 78% voter turnout, which has not been experienced in Pennsylvania since 1992 (82%). In 2008, in one of the most provocative national elections in U.S. history, only 68% of Pennsylvania voters cast ballots. That’s a 32% “no-vote rate”. If that rate is applied to the 758,000 without PA photo IDs, 242,000 would not be expected to vote in this year’s Presidential contest.

In addition, the gap in voter registration-to-PENNDOT photo ID includes college students who lived in Pennsylvania while attending in-state colleges and universities; registered to vote during their studies here; then left the state following graduation to pursue their careers. There are roughly 590,000 college students attending over 3200 schools in Pennsylvania. According to a 2010 Student Retention Survey, Philadelphia enjoys a 58% student retention figure. Even though this would be considered a bit on the high side for the entire state, let’s assume it applies. It still suggests that every four years roughly 62,000 college students leave the state (590,000/4 years x 42%).

Without even trying all that hard with admittedly fuzzy math, I’m able to whack that 758,000 by 40% (304,000). And that’s without addressing the multitudes living in large city environs who simply have not needed a PENNDOT drivers license because they rely on mass transit.

Now let’s consider that a goodly number of these mismatched Pennsylvania voters have other acceptable forms of identification:

Accredited Pennsylvania colleges or universities (with photo and expiration date)
Pennsylvania care facilities
Military identification
Valid U.S. passports (cannot be expired)
Other photo identification issued by the federal or Pennsylvania government
Employee identification issued by the federal, Pennsylvania, or a county or municipal government

It’s impossible to count those who will have the above at their disposal; but a valid assumption is they would significantly reduce the number of those left without acceptable forms of voter ID.

Finally, comes a number that illustrates why Democrats really fear the numbers being thrown around by PENNDOT. That number is 2477, or the total number of voters – according to Karen Heller’s column in The Philadelphia Inquirer – who have sought photo voter IDs from PENNDOT since the new voting law was passed in March 2012. That’s just 620 people per month!

Is that a systemic problem, caused by inaccessible PENNDOT facilities, long lines, poor transportation options, bad customer service, overly complicated documentation requirements, etc.? Or is there another reason why citizen response has been slow and not nearly adequate to address this “constitutional crisis”?

The critics would like you to believe that all the remaining individuals who haven’t bothered to seek the required photo IDs, are all physically disabled, obscenely poor, or 93-year-old grandmothers born in far away Southern states where racial discrimination rendered them unable to produce native state birth certificates.

The real problem for Democrats might just be that those they count on to carry the vote in urban locales – like Philadelphia – simply won’t be motivated enough by their precious constitutional right to vote to bother trying to get a valid photo ID. Excuses will abound for this. Some will be valid; others will be nothing more than excuses. You can be certain that, if our newly minted and recently upheld Affordable Care Act required a photo ID to obtain federally subsidized health insurance, the lines outside local PENNDOT offices would be long and suddenly so very easy to reach.

Certainly the truth lies somewhere in between my admittedly cynical, sometimes sarcastic analysis and the breast-beating wails of Jim Crow and poll taxes. If you were in Houston this week, you could have heard the Obama Administration’s view of the voter ID controversy from none other than U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who addressed the NAACP’s convention on the issue. Unfortunately you could only get inside the convention site by showing up with your government-approved photo ID!!

For me, it’s incredibly difficult to reconcile a view that requires photo ID to cash a check, ride an airplane, visit a new doctor, sign for a mortgage, or taking an opportunity to listen to the insights of the U.S. Attorney General, yet shuns the same added integrity and transparency for one of our most precious freedoms with the same level of effort.

Only in America …