By Dick Miller 28. April 2013 21:13
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Most people love Pennsylvania, for the change of seasons, if nothing else.
Many who think reincarnation is in the works would probably choose to come back to PA. Exactly where is another matter.
Pennsylvania residents fall into two distinct classes. People generally living in rural areas, otherwise known as “spongers.” Residents likely to call a city or borough home are referred to as “hosts” in this article.
The forward choice is obvious. Go live in a township with the spongers.
It’s all about taxes and community responsibilities.
Hosts foot the bill for services and benefits, not only for themselves, but for most spongers. Hosts must pay taxes to support work places, libraries, airports, schools, hospitals, stores, social and fraternal clubs and more. Hosts pay for care of the streets leading to these necessities, fire and police protection and other municipal services. Some sites – schools, hospitals, churches – are property tax exempt, increasing the burden on the taxable hosts.
Smart people, spongers, live in the rural sections of townships. Every day they drive to a nearby town to take advantage of these features. Spongers work there, shop there, send their kids to school there, doctor there and pray there – for free. Spongers have even been known to attend borough or city council meetings to complain about recreation programs or other services they use but don’t pay for.
Property insurance is likely to be less expensive in the rural areas. This benefit may be the result of municipal water systems spotting fire hydrants in proximity to rural properties. Response to fires in rural areas may be as quick as responses to fires in the cities, thanks to mutual aid pacts. Paid firefighters on duty 24/7 in the cities compared to volunteers in the boonies who no longer can get off their day jobs to respond.
(Paid firefighters and police officers may comprise a special class of spongers. They work in the cities or boroughs. They are paid from proceeds of property taxes running 25-30 mills and more. With decent salaries and exceptional pensions and health benefits, they can easily “afford” to raise their kids in the townships where property millage may be five, or even less.)
Wage taxes are another story playing to the same tune. The surgeons and professors live in townships but would not have a place to work if the hospital or college did not exist in the nearby city. The city or borough employers withhold these wage taxes; remit them to the proper city or borough tax collector who then transmits them to the resident municipality.
Next time you might seek directions to the mecca for spongers. As a result of cunning Republican lawmakers, serving as defenders of the rural populace, you can chose a township that has no police force and relies on PA State Police for protection. Everyone contributes to this service when filling your vehicle at the gas station. State cops are paid from the motor license fund, about a half billion per year. Because of this additional sponger benefit, you could call home a township that has NO property tax.
As always, there is a better alternative. However, can there be a solution to a situation that neither cunning Republicans nor docile Democrats consider a problem?
The smallest unit of municipal government should be at the county level. The cost of roads, bridges, crime fighting, fire protection, sewers, water systems and – even – education would be spread over a wider base and operated more efficiently.
That’s not going to happen, however.
In one of the smartest moves to ever benefit Republicans, state lawmakers in the early 1960s passed and Gov. William Scranton signed a law banning piecemeal annexation. This ended the natural growth of cities and boroughs. The exit of large manufactures that paid huge taxes and demanded little services was another nail in the coffin.
Former Gov. Ed Rendell talked about consolidation early on. Near the end of his first term he was asked if he was going to follow up. His answer was “That needs to wait until the second term, or there will be no second term.”
In Rendell’s second term, consolidation never made it out of the bullpen.
