Gov. Tom Wolf delivers his 2018-19 budget address in Harrisburg on Tuesday. And he’s expected, for the fourth-straight year, to propose a severance tax on shale natural gas. The nomenclature will be well-worn but hardly well-received: the shale gas industry must “pay its fair share,” the governor will say again.
Wolf and/or his acolytes also likely will repeat this half- truth: “Pennsylvania is the only natural gas-producing state that does not impose a severance tax on oil and gas.”
Never mind that California has no such severance, or extraction, tax. And never mind that the shale industry pays an “impact fee” in Pennsylvania that has generated about $1.2 billion to date.
In fact, revenue from the fee – a tax, by any other name – is expected to generate $219.4 million this year, a $46 million increase over 2017. That’s according to the state’s Independent Fiscal Office.
And because of a combination of higher shale gas prices and increased production volumes, the average effective tax rate for producers will fall, from 4.5 percent to 2.9 percent, the Post-Gazette reports.
That’s certainly no excuse to slap on more taxes, as tax and spenders might argue. For that means more money is available for research and development and jobs – and, indeed, profits.
Of course, the governor never shies away from touting public projects that benefit from the impact fee that supposedly represents the industry’s failure to “pay its fair share.”
To wit, last November, Wolf praised 115 projects in 43 counties – Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Washington, Westmoreland included – that are using nearly $16 million in impact fee receipts.
Ah, the hypocrisy of the paradox that is “progressivism.”
Short takes:
A local commentary sings the praises of Allegheny County Airport Authority CEO Christina Cassotis for increasing traffic at Pittsburgh International Airport by more than 8 percent last year, and for nearly doubling the number of nonstop destinations over the past three years.
What’s not mentioned is that much of this “progress” has been subsidized by the public. Paying for “progress” and the real thing are quite different things.
Pittsburgh City Council is proposing annual audits, to be conducted by the City Controller’s Office, that would track and project revenue from expiring city tax abatement programs in order to predict future tax receipts.
Among those to be tracked are TIF and LERTA programs – tax-increment financing and the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance program.
It’s a great idea. But wouldn’t sound public policy dictate that this be standard operating procedure from the get-go?
The Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT) says it will count strike-authorization ballots from Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers on Feb. 12.
The union is demanding pay parity with surrounding districts. Teachers (2,400), paraprofessionals (565) and technical-clerical employees (20) have been working under the terms of a prior contract that expired June 30.
A strike authorization does not guarantee a strike. In fact, the union and the district say they intend to continue negotiations.
All that said, if the PFT is intimating that the reason for Pittsburgh Public Schools’ consistently poor academic record is because its teachers are “not paid enough,” the union is baying up the wrong tree.
As such, even the hint of a strike threat will not endear the PFT or city school teachers to a public that keeps voting with its feet.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
