Here’s a twist to ringing out the old and ringing in the new: A Democrat governor has suspended a taxpayer giveaway program because of a lack of money and Republicans are complaining.
But it’s not as simple as that.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf says the well has run dry for the two-decade-old Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) program. New applications for the effort designed to entice businesses to locate in economically challenged regions will not be accepted until the commonwealth’s tax system is overhauled to make it “more equitable,” an administration official says.
Back to that loaded statement in a moment.
Republicans, who control both houses of the Legislature, complained that they were kept out of the loop. Steve Miskin, spokesman for the House GOP Caucus, said “the Wolf administration is making a decision unilaterally without even an FYI” that it was planning to do so.
Before anyone ascribes Miskin comments as being a hissy-fit, hear out the GOP’s overriding point:
“In the end, revenue alone puts a bandage on a budget problem,” Miskin says.
Of course, he’s right. When Democrats pine for a “more equitable” tax system, that usually means they want to jack up taxes on “the rich.”
Wolf has insisted he’ll seek budget cuts before calling for tax hikes to close a projected deficit of anywhere from $600 million to $1 billion-plus.
Miskin reiterates that there should be no sacred cows as Republicans work to “totally restructure Pennsylvania government and make it serve the businesses and the people.”
That’s all well and good. But it also means that targeted tax breaks, KOZ breaks among them, must be replaced with lower taxes for all. In a free market system, that’s the best, and “more equitable,” incentive for doing business.
Thomas Sowell, the great economist and columnist, has retired at the age of 86. A classicist of the Austrian School — think Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, among others — Sowell always interjected a badly needed dose of common sense in any economics discussion.
Some of his gems:
“Competition does a much more effective job than government in protecting consumers.”
“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
“Economics is the study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. Its purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music and literature.”
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”
“Whenever someone refers to me as someone ‘who happens to be black,’ I wonder if they realize both that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.”
“Life does not ask us what we want. It presents us with options.”
“In age of artificial intelligence, too many of our schools and colleges are producing artificial stupidity.”
“It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.”
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feelings.”
“Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortune is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life.”
A tip of the hat to The Daily Caller’s Kerry Picket, who compiled those and other Thomas Sowell quotes. Sowell’s words and insight helped to shape much public policy over many years and will be sorely missed.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
