Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mailTravels with Fast Eddie
While Gov. Rendell is probably one of the more brazen offenders of state-sponsored grand larceny, he is hardly alone. Remember US Airways? How about the $60 million we threw away expanding Pittsburgh International Airport so it would stay here?
We need a federal law that puts a stop to the spending of state and municipal tax dollars to "grow" local economies. Two things will come from such a law:
First, no company will be able to shake down a city or state by threatening to move if it doesn't put out the tax dollars. This would include professional sports franchises.
Second, without the ability to steal our money at gunpoint and then turn it over to the political crony of their choosing, our politicians will have only one weapon in their arsenal that will retain or create economic opportunity in their districts: tax cuts!
Big ones! The kind that nearly force corporations to locate in our state, in our cities. The kind that allow our taxpayers to keep most of what they earn, to spend as they see fit. The kind of tax relief that would be to this woe-begotten state as a 10-day rain in the driest desert.
So write your federal legislator and demand a federal law banning tax dollars from being given to private-sector corporations. Tell them to stop the madness. And pray that they listen.
Tom Lalor
Manor
