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As Monday debate looms, Wolf defends his income tax plan

HARRISBURG - In what essentially was a warm-up for Monday's gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate Tom Wolf found himself playing defense on some of his key campaign positions.

HARRISBURG - In what essentially was a warm-up for Monday's gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate Tom Wolf found himself playing defense on some of his key campaign positions.

Speaking before a packed crowd at the monthly Pennsylvania press club luncheon Monday, Wolf reiterated his position that he would boost education funding through a 5 percent tax on the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.

But he found himself having to explain his position on other issues, namely his idea of replacing the state's across-the-board personal income tax with a graduated tax. Wolf, a wealthy businessman from York, said he believes that would ease the tax burden on the middle class and shift the burden to wealthier taxpayers.

Wolf has said he favors a "universal exemption" - an income amount below which all households are not taxed - while instituting a flat percentage tax to incomes above that. That new flat tax would be higher than the state's current 3.07 percent.

The plan has been criticized by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's campaign and others as violating the so-called "uniformity clause" of the state Constitution. They have also contended it would hurt the middle class, which would be taxed at a higher rate.

At the press club, Wolf was asked what he considered "middle class" - his response was "somewhere in the $80,000 [per household] range."

"I don't know where we got the idea that my income tax proposal, which is aimed at actually creating a break for the middle class and proposing a fairer tax system, actually got to the point where it's a big tax increase for people who make a certain amount of money," said Wolf.

Wolf is scheduled to face off with Corbett at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Hershey for the first of three gubernatorial debates. It will be aired live, and again at 11 p.m., on PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

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