Gil Smart observes in his column “Liquor privatization would trade a sure thing for promises” :
“For 80 years, Pennsylvania has been in the liquor business, and that business has been good to Pennsylvania. Your taxes have been lower than they otherwise might have been because of the fiscal success of this system.”
“… Some $80 million — 16 percent — consisted of profits; money that, in the future, may go into private pockets rather than public coffers…”
“Finally, let’s talk about labor. Much of the privatization push is fueled by the Republican drive to eviscerate unions. Our state stores are unionized, paying decent wages with decent benefits while still transferring all that money to the Treasury.”
WATCHDOG: Three wags of the tail! Like privatizing the lottery system, this is another Tom Corbett attempt to divert state revenue and profits to private sources. We can be sure that along the way much of that money will end up in the pockets of his supporters who will in turn provide large political contributions for his 2014 political campaign.
As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” State stores are as readily available as super markets, the displays are good, and the courtesy of the employees rival the best of retail chains.
Our advice to Pennsylvanians? Hold onto your wallets until a new governor can be elected and takes office in 2015.
Perhaps Mr. Smart could enlighten the Lancaster Newspapers readership by investigating just how much profit is going into the private pockets of PSP rather than the taxpayer ‘owned’ Convention Center.
Now THAT would be a ‘local,’local’,local’ article worth reading…provided he got his facts straight in providing ‘full disclosure’. It will never happen of course….but we can all dream, can’t we????