Letters: Taxpayers deserve a break; Rediscovering the ‘danger’ of deficits

Taxpayers deserve a break

In Naperville, Illinois, the school board announced it would distribute $10 million back to taxpayers this year. The superintendent told residents that he “understands the great burden many of our families have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and hopes that this reimbursement lessens that burden.” The typical family will receive a refund of $200 to $500. The pandemic shutdown generated a savings of roughly $20 million, or about 6.5% out of a $300 million school budget. The district’s expenses for everything from transportation, utilities and staffing needs have been much lower while the doors have been shut. Why aren’t more school boards in areas where school buildings were shut down providing families and businesses with property tax rebate checks? Heritage Foundation education analyst Lindsey Burke, who first suggested the tax rebate idea, said the taxpayers who fund the schools deserve a refund. But in suburbs where property taxes primarily fund schools, the savings should be like what Naperville saw. The near-record 12% nationwide increase in home values over the past year means more, not fewer, revenues for schools. If school authorities claim no budget savings, mayors have a fiduciary obligation to require full audits to determine where all the money went. The people who deserve a break are the tens of millions of taxpayers who paid for public educational services not rendered.

Rediscovering the ‘danger’ of deficits

Why is it deficits only matter to Republicans when there’s a Democrat in the White House?

That great fiscal conservative Ronald Reagan doubled the deficit while claiming that government is the problem. Some 20 years later, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke truth saying, “Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter.”

Obviously, they don’t matter to Republicans, because the first thing Trump did, with overwhelming support from all Republicans in Congress, was to increase the deficit to the highest it has ever been by instituting tax cuts that benefitted mostly rich people and corporations. Republicans claimed the tax cut would pay for itself and there would be a trickle-down effect that would help the poor and middle class.

Unsurprisingly, this proved false as the deficit increased to $27 trillion, up 36% in less than four years under Donald “King of Debt” Trump.

This trickle-down theory has been discredited repeatedly, yet Republicans keep running it up the flagpole.

Yes, President Biden’s pandemic spending bill may further increase the deficit, but suddenly Republicans have “rediscovered” the “danger” of deficits.

The same Republicans who supported massive budget deficits under Trump now object to providing help to people being evicted from their apartments, losing their jobs, or having trouble feeding their families.

Of course, Rep. Glenn Thompson voted for the Trump deficit increase, but now joins with Republicans who say the Biden plan will unnecessarily increase the federal deficit.

Under people like Trump and Thompson the Republican Party has become a party of shallow hypocrites.

Protect Pennsylvanians’ interests

The Feb. 25 CDT quotes Pennsylvania President Pro Tempore Jake Corman as saying of the governor’s authority to issue emergency declarations, “We have one person making every decision.” Looking at the broader picture, it’s totally clear that Jake and his colleague Kerry Benninghoff want the legislature, which they lead, to control every decision, be it about emergencies or any other topics.

In telling us to vote for the two Pennsylvania constitutional amendments limiting the governor’s emergency declaration power they are promoting their own political interests rather than concern for Pennsylvanians’ welfare.

I hope readers will join me in protecting Pennsylvanians’ interests by voting against the proposed constitutional amendments to limit the governor’s emergency declaration authority.