State leaders should think big
As we enter 2015, a new governor will take office facing extraordinary challenges which will require bipartisan cooperation and compromise. Neither party will get everything it wants, and the Republicans are in the driver’s seat, possessing the ability to vote down any proposal put forth by the Wolf administration.
I suggest that our leaders think big, that a “grand bargain” be considered with some victories and some bitter medicine to swallow on both sides of the aisle. To follow are my suggestions for a state government of accomplishment rather than one of partisan rancor and intransigence:
• Gradually raise the state minimum wage to $9 per hour.
• Adopt the House-passed measure to eliminate the Prohibition-style state control of alcohol sales.
• Enact a 5 percent Marcellus Shale drilling tax similar to that which is levied in other states which host fracking, but one which ensures that local government will continue to derive revenue from the industry.
• Take action on the $50 billion pension shortfall, legislation which, at the very least, enables the bleeding to be stanched by enacting a fiscally-sound system for new hires.
• Eliminate the perverse incentive for General Assembly members to serve for life by scaling back their extraordinarily generous pension plans, which enable them, unlike other state workers, to retire at 100 percent of their final salary after 33 and one-third years of service.
• Move along the process of markedly reducing the size of the House and Senate.
• Address the decades-long concerns of middle-class homeowners who are being taxed out of their homes by enacting real limits on the extent to which local school boards can increase our property tax burdens each year.
• Finally, balance the out-of-kilter state budget without hurting the middle class. I have not the slightest idea as to how this can be accomplished, but that is why we have a General Assembly which costs us almost a third-of-a-billion dollars per year.
Oren M. Spiegler
Upper Saint Clair