Gambling is Coming to Pennsylvania

Published as a guest column in the
Delaware County Daily Times on July 25, 2004

Property taxes and school taxes continue to burden home owners.  Funding education is one of those topics that ranks right up there with politics and religion.  Opinions on how to best fund education are like passing gas.  Yours smell just fine, but everybody else’s stinks.

Before we get into how to fund education, let’s take a look at education itself.  First, I want to refute the aura that those employed in our public school systems are angels of mercy committed only to helping children. 

Let’s take a look at a typical school district, Ridley, the one in which I reside.  The opinions that follow are no reflection on the Ridley School District, but are based on my business relationships with dozens of school districts throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

The average salary of a school teacher in my district is about $60,000.  A teacher works about 190 days in a year and makes about $315 a day.  Not bad work if you can get it.  And our educators will tell us how difficult it is working in the salt mines of the hallowed halls.  Conversely, for us in the private sector, things are just peachy, as all of our customers are very reasonable, all of our bosses are sweet as pie, our fellow employees are destined for saint hood, and we all know that our jobs are secure throughout our lifetime because companies don’t go out of business or have cut backs. 

Of course our teachers continue their education on their own time to better educate their students, attaining degrees ad infinitum, which ultimately results in the requirement for we mere mortals to address them as Doctor.  Of course, it matters little to them that the attainment of Masters and Doctorates results in increase in step and guide, which results in additional increases in compensation.

Another point of contention is benefits.  The average working stiff in the private sector either has no benefits or pays for a large portion of them out of pocket, whereas employees in my school district pay 7.5% of the total cost of their health benefits.

But our school districts are not comprised of teachers alone.  There is “management”, which includes Dr. Superintendent, Dr. Business Manager, Dr. Curriculum Director, Dr. Technology Director, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, and Dr. Howard.  These folks pull in six figure salaries, and unlike their counterparts in the private sector, do not have competition and the bottom line accountability that comes with the territory.  In the private sector, when management does not perform, management changes, and in many situations, organizations go bankrupt.  In education, mismanagement results in increased taxes.

In conclusion, there will never be enough money to fund education.

However, Democratic Governor, Ed, I Never Saw a Tax I Didn’t Like, Rendell is giving us 61,000 slot machines that will provide funds for reducing our taxes.  However, in order for a school district like Ridley to be eligible for this new found wealth, we need to implement an Earned Income Tax.  So, before we are eligible to get in the line for these funds, we have to implement another tax on all wage earners. 

This brings back memories of the time that I hit the Canadian lottery, or so I was told.  Before I could claim my millions, I needed to send a cashiers check for $1,000 to handle the processing fees.  I still don’t understand why they just couldn’t accept my offer to keep $1 million, and just send me the balance. Could that have been a scam, I asked myself? 

Now, let’s take a look at the numbers behind the EIT, which will require that we send to Harrisburg the equivalent of one-tenth of one percent of earned wages.  Someone making $40,000 would pay a total of $40.  As with anything run by government, the costs of collecting, administering, and accounting for this tax will probably cost about $100 per person.  You do not need a Doctorate in Mathematics to see we have a problem here. 

But, with the combined geniuses in education and government, they will provide the solution.  Implement the Earned Income Tax Collection, Administration, and Accounting Tax. 

How about this Governor Rendell?   Figure out what the workers in the Ridley School District would provide the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through your Earned Income Tax, and deduct that amount from the gazillions of dollars that will be coming our way through your brilliant slot machine funds.  Doesn’t that seem to make sense?

So, again, our political leaders have found another way to tax those of us that work for a living.  And once this Earned Income Tax comes into effect, it will never go away. And it will never go down.  And like every other tax, it will increase over time.  And so will the salaries of our politicians and educators.  Birds of a feather flock together.