Commonwealth Foundation President Matt Brouillette: Gov. Wolf Ran On Giving Middle Class A Tax Break, Instead Giving Everybody A Tax Increase
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Commonwealth Foundation President and CEO Matt Brouillette spoke with Talk Radio 1210 WPHT midday host Dom Giordano about Governor Tom Wolf's tax and budget proposal. He pointed out that with the vote of 193-0, even the state's Democrats did not want to "put up a vote to dramatically increase taxes in Pennsylvania."
"They realize that this is a non-starter for most Pennsylvanians. They might like the idea of 'hey, let's spend more money on education or let's tax the natural gas industry', but when they realize that this is going to cost us more money—I mean extracting $12 billion out of the economy over the next two years—they'll realize that this isn't really what we signed up for...It's going to be more expensive to die even in Pennsylvania. It's caskets, it's funeral services—all of these things. That's the only way that government can have more money to spend is if it takes more and more from us. "
Brouillette points out that for every dollar in taxes that the proposal would take out of Pennsylvanian's pockets, Wolf would only return 30 cents of it over the next two years but not to those that earned it.
"Frequently, these transfers of wealth are going to be in other areas that aren't going to be paying those higher taxes."
He feels that with this proposal, Gov. Wolf is already backing off from one of his major campaign messages.
"Tom Wolf campaigned as 'I want to give the middle class a tax cut', but this is where the Independent Fiscal Office (an independent agency of the state), said that every income group is going to pay more under Tom Wolf's plan. So, instead of getting a tax cut, everybody is getting a tax increase. As you know, the average family of four would see an additional $1,400 come out of their family budget. This isn't going to be good for Pennsylvanians and I think that's why nobody stood up voting for Governor Wolf's tax proposals."
