Legislation aims to curb spending
06/14/2007
I wish to address the (letter) by Douglas Hill opposing my legislation enforcing a common sense cap on state spending.
Specifically, Senate Bill 707, known, as the Taxpayer Protection Act, would statutorily control state spending by prohibiting an increase larger than that of inflation and population growth combined.
Beginning in the 1990s, state government went on a serious spending binge. Pennsylvania’s General Fund spending increased 110 percent from $12.4 billion to $26.1 billion between 1990 and 2006. By comparison, over the same time frame, the personal income earned by all Pennsylvanians increased only 88 percent.
In other words, government has been growing much faster than our ability to pay for it. The result, naturally, is a sharp increase in taxation. According to the Tax Foundation, Pennsylvania had the ninth lowest state and local tax burden in 1990. Today, Pennsylvania has slipped down to the middle of the pack.
Requiring government to live within its means, as families and individuals must do, is not only vital to making our tax burden more manageable, but also to growing our economy. As President Reagan once noted, you can grow the government, or you can grow the economy, but you can’t growth both. Research by the Commonwealth Foundation backs up Reagan’s wisdom by indicating that, in fact, states which routinely increase spending above inflation and population growth do not experience as much as economic growth as those which keep spending at or below inflation and population growth.
Mr. Hill’s concern that capping state spending will mean less money from Harrisburg for mandates on local government, and thus higher local taxes, is legitimate. It is unfortunate, however, that Mr. Hill mischaracterized the recent amendment to my bill addressing this issue. The amendment to Senate Bill 707 approved last week would serve as a serious disincentive to reducing state monies for mandated local programs and services. Specifically, for every dollar taken away from state mandates on local governments, the state spending cap would be reduced by a dollar. Colorado implemented this provision in its state spending limit law, and unfunded mandates in the Rocky Mountain State have been held in check.
The bottom line is this: we have to get spending under control at all levels of government, and the Taxpayer Protection Act is a crucial first step.
Sen. Mike Folmer
Lebanon Republican
