LOWERING PROPERTY TAXES, WEATHERIZING HOMES AND HELPING WITH ENERGY BILLS

By Michael K. Ellis

We can do much more to use casino and Marcellus Shale income revenues to reduce property taxes for those with fixed incomes and provide grants for home weatherization.

Throughout my district, I encounter many fixed-income seniors who fear losing their homes to tax sales or who cannot afford to maintain their homes and pay property taxes. As a result of the unintentional deterioration of their homes, the entire neighborhood suffers and home values plummet. Here are the immediate changes I will seek to let them live out their best years without such fears.

I will propose legislation that will create new revenue sources: Keno gaming, a type of number lottery in local bars and taverns would raise $60 million each year. Legalizing the expansion of small games of chance in bars and taverns would raise another $120 million. Redirecting table gaming revenue would produce another $160 million bringing the total in new revenue to $330 million. This amount is in addition to the current $1 billion in slots revenue expected once casino gambling is fully established in the Commonwealth. This would create a stream of $1.34 billion.

I will seek to direct these new resources to local school districts to completely eliminate the tax burden on fixed-income, elderly homeowners. Savings to be derived from prison and sentencing reforms, more effective tax collections on corporations, the elimination of wasteful and inefficient state programs, and new revenue sources such as taxing smokeless tobacco (revenue: $53 million) and imposing an additional 20 cents per pack on cigarette sales (revenue: $91 million) would raise enough revenue to eliminate school district taxes for elderly homeowners with a fixed income.

I oppose Governor Corbett's efforts to collect sales taxes on online products This move undoubtedly hurts lower- and middle-income residents the hardest, instead of pursuing other common-sense revenue options. Seniors and the disabled who cannot travel easily to stores would be adversely affected as their online purchasing costs would immediately jump 8% in Philadelphia.

When seniors cannot afford to maintain their homes, entire neighborhoods suffer losses in property values. They can become blighted, havens for drug dealers and lead to the flight of those that do maintain their properties. This is not the fault of our seniors, although they may feel embarrassed when facing their neighbors. They can barely make ends meet trying to pay for food, fuel and especially high health care expenses. On top of this, they must bear high property taxes to pay for an inadequate public school system whose drop-out rate is very, very high, a tell-tale indicator of systemic problems. This very high drop-out rate leads to juvenile criminal activities that terrorize our seniors in their homes and on the streets. Our seniors deserve much better. As a volunteer advocate for seniors through the AARP Program, I feel a special closeness to them and their need for a peaceful, crime-free and affordable lifestyle. They paid their taxes for many years, and now they deserve our support.

I will help my constituents by stopping the impact of skyrocketing electric utility costs in a number of ways. First, I will introduce legislation that places limits on rate increases over a 3-year phase-in period following the end of caps in any region of the state. Second, I will support bulk energy purchasing by means of regional authorities to help small businesses aggregate their purchasing power. Also, I believe that the state can engage in bulk energy purchasing and resale if it appears that there is insufficient competition to keep costs down.

Finally, I believe that our state has mismanaged the $353 million in federal stimulus funding for home weatherization for low and moderate-income homeowners and renters paying for utilities. This program promised so much in the way of immediate jobs skills training, employment and home weatherization that would have cut utility bills enormously. Instead, the Commonwealth delayed, created bureaucratic procedures, opened only one training center statewide, and simply did not get this program operating for months, for which it was criticized by the federal government. This is why we need change now in Harrisburg. This program could have saved our homeowners and renters millions in energy costs last winter. Instead, it did nothing. I will ask the federal government to continue this program, but I will make certain that this program is managed properly to create jobs and help our citizens to save energy immediately.