Commentary
Op-Ed: Should Pa. increase education funding by raising taxes?
To recover from the academic havoc caused by COVID-19, Pennsylvania kids and their families need one thing: a choice in where their education dollars go. Here’s what Governor Wolf is giving them instead: a nearly 50% income tax increase, taking a chunk of parents’ take-home pay, along with a future of lost opportunities when businesses flee the state to avoid tax hikes.
Wolf is using our children and their legitimate educational needs to justify a tax-and-spend agenda that’s unfair and unwarranted. The majority of districts already have plenty of funding to meet their budgetary needs, with some districts padding their reserve funds during the pandemic.
Yet based on the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials’ “worst-case scenario” for declining local tax revenues, 95% of state districts would remain financially healthy and have extra money in the bank—even without Wolf’s spending increase. How?
Read the full feature in The Philadelphia Inquirer.