On
my way to the office on Tuesday morning the radio was full of both local and
national discussions as we would see a new Governor take office in Pennsylvania
around lunch time and the President was set to address the nation in his State of the Union speech in the evening. It should be no surprise to anyone who
reads this blog that I wasn’t looking forward to either of these speeches. Two meals
ruined by the double d’oh!
The
morning flew by as I as jumping from project to project trying to make sure
things were lined up for what was going to be a scattered afternoon. As I
walked out of my office to head to a meeting Tom Wolf (in sheep’s clothing) was
being sworn in as the 47th Governor of the Commonwealth. While his
speech was innocuous there are too many questions still unanswered stemming
from his previously stated views from the campaign. While by no means all encompassing,
this was pointed out later in the evening by 6 ABC (a local Philadelphia news
station) when they reported the following:
“Wolf outlined his
goals in positive, general terms - creating good-paying jobs, equalizing
educational opportunity in public schools and providing "a government that
works." He did not mention a projected $2 billion-plus revenue gap for the
fiscal year that starts July 1 or his proposals that include levying a new tax
on the natural gas industry, overhauling the state income tax and increasing
public school funding.”
Basically
we are all just waiting for the state and local taxes to go up along with the
federal taxes that are certain to be on the rise as well. Having a greater
chunk taken out of our pay is a near certainty heading into the final two years
of the Obama administration. Some will say that it will only be imposed on the
top 1% but those are not the ones that are going to feel it. Trickle down
taxation is something that is not discussed as much as it should be but simply
put the ripple from top to bottom is certain and, in the end, we are all going
to have lighter wallets.
By
the way, Business Insider has a great state by state chart of how much you would
have to make to be considered part of the 1%. The Atlantic has another chart that breaks it down by age. While still
high compared to what many of us take home each year, it is takes far less than a million dollar annually to be considered part of the 1%. In fact, when
you think about it, nearly every politician that you vote for would fall into
this top echelon.
However,
what really struck me about the evening speech by the President is the
combative tone which he used throughout the night including the record threat to veto four separate initiatives expected to be passed by Congress. This is
particularly striking when paired with his other pleas for understanding and cooperation.
With an economy that is still lagging and national security in question, might
we consider the fact that there are other ways to go about doing business. Of
course that wouldn’t work. Instead we are going to keep paying more and more
money to support failed and flawed policies because the best way to fix a
problem is to throw money at it and the best way to get people to accept
something is to give it to them for free (you just get taxed for shipping,
handling, and processing). The state of disillusion is strong indeed!
