John Baer: All aboard the woowoo train to EdWorld!
ALONG THE rough and rutted road of the state budget impasse, we're seeing little side trips to a place I call EdWorld. It's a land of outlooks reflecting only the views of the state's First Ed. Think reality in a fun-house mirror.
ALONG THE rough and rutted road of the state budget impasse, we're seeing little side trips to a place I call EdWorld.
It's a land of outlooks reflecting only the views of the state's First Ed.
Think reality in a fun-house mirror.
For example: Last Friday, the Guv told a Pittsburgh TV station that since he arranged for state workers to get no-interest loans to help fight payless paydays, "They should put a statue of me up on their mantel . . . "
Let's see. Tens of thousands of little Ed busts or, better, full-body bronze Ed statuettes adorning places of honor in state workers' homes?
So far, not one of many e-mails from such employees suggests that that's their intent.
At a Capitol news conference Monday, Rendell said, "I was kidding" about the statue on the mantel. I watched the clip from WTAE-TV. Didn't look like he was kidding. Looked more like a mini-mental junket to the other side of the moon.
Same for his twice-stated assertion that because he didn't take cost-of-living increases for the last two years he somehow took a "pay cut."
He said during a Pennsylvania Cable Network TV call-in show last Wednesday that refusing increases is "essentially a 6 percent pay cut." He said it again at Monday's news conference, but escalated it to "exactly the same" as a pay cut.
Yeah, see, I'm gonna to have to go ahead and point out that when your salary stays the same - his is $170,150 - that's not a pay cut. Lots of people have gotten pay cuts. Lots of people have lost their pay, period.
He is not among them.
At least his lock-your-doors declaration that a Republican budget means that 800 state police troopers get fired and that gangs of criminals and sex offenders will descend upon the land like locusts seems to have run its course. Mostly, I suppose, since a Senate hearing and the head of the troopers union suggested that its course was on a highway of hyperbole running straight through EdWorld.
But the Guv continues insisting that his proposed increase in the state's personal-income tax - the second since he took office - is a "modest" hike, amounting to $4.50 a-week (initially he said $5 a week) or $234 a year for an average taxpayer.
While this amount is defined as modest, his property-tax rebates to homeowners from slots is always called significant. Yet the average annual slots rebate is $189, a slight decline from last year.
The tactic isn't unique to Ed. When politicians play Santa, the gifts are large. When they play Scrooge, the take is small. It's just that Ed's made this tactic into a nicely sculpted artwork now on display in EdWorld.
Same with his saying that our personal-income tax is "second lowest" in the nation. I've noted before that among states with an income tax, only six others levy a flat tax like ours. We are second- lowest among the seven, behind Illinois. But among states with a graduated income tax, 25 have low-end rates lower than our 3.07 percent flat rate.
So, it strikes me as unfair to compare our tax with all other states'.
When convenient, His Edness agrees. He made the point in an op-ed piece in Sunday's Harrisburg Patriot-News. Reacting to a news story on what taxes are being raised in other states, Ed argued: "The fact is, there are 50 different sets of fiscal circumstances in 50 different states, and each one must settle on the mix of spending cuts and revenue increases that suits it best."
In other words, it's unfair to compare states' taxes - unless of course you're doing so in, well, you know where. *
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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