Bill to require PA municipalities to pay for state trooper protection passes House committee…
Bill to require PA municipalities to pay for state trooper protection passes House committee…
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29 Comments
It is about time municipalities repay the Commonwealth for the free ride their citizens have been enjoying. I know they pay state tax but enjoy a disproportionate return versus their neighbors who pay for a local police force in addition to state taxes.
Fundamentally, this comes down to the voters of these muncipalities not prioritizing law enforcement over other things. It should not take Harrisburg to tell these municipalities and their stupid voters they need police.
A lot of local communities do not have police because they don't have much crime. A police force is an expensive proposition that many do not need. Round-the-clock staffing costs a tremendous amount, and the pensions are a hidden killer. They don't need any more protection than the state police can provide, and can't afford the hit to their taxpayers to overstaff. Plus, many communities don't need another group of employees with quotas to meet.
Actually this is just another example of our huge, socialistic government attempting to extort more tax money.The "stupid" voters don't need to be told how to live their lives in their municipalities. If the people of theTwp I live in are forced to to pay for one Trooper in the Twp, the first year would cost them 68k a 27% increase in taxes, second year 135k a 55% increase in taxes, the third year 203k a 82%. And If the liberals in Harrisburg would stop giving everyone in major cities a "free ride" on mass transit funded by our tax dollars maybe we could cut taxes out here in conservative rural PA.
The myth of rural areas not having crime is slowly falling to the wayside. 10 years ago there was little crime in Greene County, now they are having armed robberies and out of control property crime tied to an out of control drug problem. I have had family in the county since after the American Revolution and none of my living relatives can remember such crime. There probably has not been this much crime since the miner unrest during the early 20th century.
If a municipality cannot afford law enforcement coverage, it should not exist. It should be forced to merge with other muncipalities.
I lived in a small community that most times had no police. The State Police were 30 miles away and the only time they were called was for an auto accident , robbery or such.When a State Police car hit town, it was an event. In these small towns of 500 to 1,000 or so , there's just no need for even a part time policeman. While I lived there, I did notice the amount of money we sent to the State and the meager amount that trickled back from the State. We paved our streets with liquid fuel tax allotment, maintained our own fire and ambulance service. The ambulance being no easy task when the nearest hospital is 30 mi. away.
To make a long story short, living in both a small rural community and then moving to a city, I find the city people much more dependent and demanding on not only police but all government services. Most government services the small rural communities receive are things mandated by the State and it's citified legislature. A small rural community doesn't have the same needs as Philadelphia but many times they are mandated by the State to live under the same rules. To charge them for using the State Police is nothing but another money grabbing scheme and more than likely put forth by a big city Democrat.
The small hamlet of Export (http://www.city-data.com/city/Export-Pennsylvania... ) is entirely surrounded by the municipality of Murrysville. It is suburban, not urban, not rural. It is poor. It has two stop signs, no stop lights. It has no police force. It relies solely on PSP protection. There are bars, drugs, DUI's, petty thefts, etc. Should the residents of the hamlet of Export rely solely on PSP protection without paying an additional fee?
I think the Export serves as a good example of the completely insane municipal structure we have in this state. There is no reason it should be an independent locality. It should be part of Murrysville. The root cause of this problem is that municipal boundaries have not kept up with population shifts.
In our area, what little crime there is comes from the War on Drugs. This battle fuels a lot of jobs in the Criminal Justice Industry, and will waged until enough voters realize how bamboozled they are and just let addicts buy drugs in drug stores, as they did from the beginning of the Republic until the state began to make people pay to kill their own pain. Hiring more policemen merely treats the symptom, a tax-addicted public sector, and makes us all poorer.
In our area, what little crime there is comes from the War on Drugs. This battle fuels a lot of jobs in the Criminal Justice Industry, and will be waged until enough voters realize how bamboozled they are and just let addicts buy drugs in drug stores, as they did from the beginning of the Republic until the state began to make people pay to kill their own pain. Hiring more policemen merely treats the symptom, a tax-addicted public sector, and makes us all poorer.
If you charge the rural communities, charge the cities and suburbs as well. The State Police are funded with State taxpayer monies, money from all over the State, not just the suburban areas. After all, don't we all subsidize urban mass transit. Why not let the cities pay for that without taking highway monies from all over the State so the cities and suburbs can ride the bus at a reduced rate ? Another thing, how much grant money are these suburban police forces getting, money from all over the State? How about the hundreds of millions dumped into Philadelphia by Rendell ?
I lived in the rural areas most of my life and served on many small government authorities, I saw where our money went. county, state and federal taxes went out and not very much ever made it's way back. Roads here in Harrisburg and surrounding areas get much better care from the State. I lived in a coal region and millions of tons went out of there and not much of that money ever came back. Now we supposedly have drilling for gas in the rural areas. Tell me that money will stay in the rural areas.
Based on a breakdown of personal income tax, corporate income tax, and sales tax, the rural counties simply do not produce a high percentage of revenue. The problem is that rural areas do not generate corporate income tax revenue. At least Philadelphia has a lot of corporations in it.
Again my view of rural areas milking the rest of the state for tax revenue might be biased since I lived in Greene County which milks revenue.
Seeing I know people from my high school class who became addicted to heroin and now costs to society, I can see the necessity for controlling the supply of drugs. If we legalized drugs, this addiction problem would not go away, but increase as people would have access to drugs.
Ryan,
Do you mean Philadelphia corporations like Com Cast and Sun Oil that enjoy the millions Rendell and the other Dems. pay them to stay in Philadelphia. How about all the stadium monies being handed out ? How about the Convention Center. How about we have Philadelphia pay for all the hoods from Philadelphia in prisons in other areas of the state ? That's one industry Philadelphia has pawned off on the rest of the State.
I've seen little townships that had millions of tons of coal taken out, townships with less than 200 residents. Where did that money go ? It didn't end up where it was developed. You need to spend some time in rural government where they pay for what they buy and don't go running to the State for every little problem they have. Most of the money spent in rural areas are due to big city legislators passing big city mandates that don't fit rural areas.
I lived both places, rural and urban and if times get much tougher, I'm going back to the rural area where people take care of their own, unless of course some Philadelphia legislator passes some law taking away their Freedom to do so. If I lived within 50 mi. of Philadelphia, I'd put a bag over my head when I went out. But then, that makes it a little tough to get a handout.
Oh please… local government always has a hand out in rural areas. I have had family members who served in local government. The basic budget process always involves asking the state for money. Nothing gets done in Greene County without someone asking for a handout from the local high school baseball team getting a new field to the borough building a new municipal building. Any time a business moves into the county, it receives a tax exemption or some other government handout like the recent Wal-Mart constructed in Waynesburg that has its access roads paid for via a Federal earmark by Murtha. Rural people are also huge of agricultural subsidies.
I do not deny Philadelphia seeks handouts, but to say rural areas do not seek them is laughable. Rural areas are so dependent on the state for their schools. If you pulled all state school funding, most rural schools would have to shut down. Would the suburban districts have to shut down? Probably not. Where I live now in Radnor Twp., around 80 percent of the school budget comes from local taxes. Where I lived for a number of years, Cumberland Twp, Greene County, a majority of the school's funding came from the state. The sad thing is that Cumberland Twp. still collects more in taxes as a percentage of average income than Radnor Twp. does when it comes to local taxes.
Stupid voter… rural voters milk the suburban muncipalities for their existence. I am sure your public school district receives a greater percentage of its funding from the state than its suburban counterparts.
Further, there is mass transit in most rural areas. I have got stuck behind those senior citizen buses way too many times with their stupid PennDOT logos on them.
If you are going to whine, lets be intellectually honest. Pennsylvania would be West Virginia North if it was not for the suburban counties.
The problem Bill is simple. The punishment for drug use is not high enough. If we tripled the sentences for use and made trafficking a life sentence on the first offense, the drug problem would vanish because few people would want to get involved in the first place if the punishments were so high.
This can be said for drunk driving. DUI related accidents are the biggest cause of criminally related deaths in America. I am not for reinstituting prohibition, but I am for enacting steeper penalties for DUI. We should follow our European cousins in this regard who have higher penalties, but lower DUI rates. A one year jail sentence for your first DUI would scare people off the roads if they were drinking. Suspending their licenses for life after the second offense would scare people into not drinking and driving.
The problem is that Americans are getting weak when it comes to law and order anymore. We like to talk a good game about being tough on crime, but lets see some guts here. We could eliminate crime if we decided to actually give the legal system some teeth instead of hugging criminals.
Greene co. is a Democratic area, for sure they have their hand out. You can always find a small community with it's hand out somewhere in the State. But, overall, per person, more money goes into areas in and around Philly than in rural areas. Not long ago there was an article about the welfare dollars and money for fatherless children going to Philly. I can't remember the amounts but Philly was leading the rest of the State by a wide margin.
Another thing, any time the politicians can get two parties arguing about who deserves to be taxed or pay some fee, you can bet it's going to happen. The rural areas don't want to pay for the urban areas and the urban areas don't want to pay for the rural areas. It all works out in favor of the money grubbing politicians. Do you really believe having small communities pay for using the State Police will benefit the urban areas ? Sometimes we'd all be better off to oppose any and all taxes, fees and license proposals. If they start charging the rural areas, how long do you think it will be until they charge everybody ? Even though most urban areas have their own police, I know the State Police still go into those areas. h Or,how about Philly paying for Fumo's mess ? Why should rural areas pay all that cost when he's from Philly. I think we all better just shut up and oppose any more spending or charging by the State.
Ryan, I get the impression that you're young, intelligent, and still supporting the state in it's expensive, useless, utterly phony War on Drugs. Putting more people in jail for something that will cause no harm if it's cheap was tried by extremely self-righteous people during Prohibition.
Now that more people want increased funding for, and jobs in, the Criminal Justice Industry, they've criminalized behavior (drug use) that the Republic survived for several centuries. When you talk of "tripling sentences", every Nanny from Robespierre to Obama applauds. Why not just leave people alone?
Ryan, suggest that making drugs illegal makes for obscene profit margins. That produces a class of "pushers" who would be doing something more productive if there weren't such huge profits in drugs. Selling drugs is one of the few ways high school dropouts can think they're going to make "big money", and, possibly, make it, for awhile. No "pushers", less drugs.
If your point is valid, that addiction would increase with legalization, we have to wonder why, in 1907, there was not a problem with massive drug addiction? There are more addicts, now, and more people profiting from those addicts. Half the jobs in the criminal justice industry would disappear if we legalized drugs, and several foreign economies would collapse, all propped up by the gullibility of the American voter, who rarely sees an imaginary problem he doesn't want to "do something about".
Bill as long as we have a nanny state, we have an interest in the destructive behavior of others. I hate such a situation, but as long as my tax dollars are going to pay for government services we are stuck with regulating behavior.
Strict penalties, if adequately enforced, would serve as a deterrence.
The suburban areas in this state subsidize the existence of everywhere else. If it was not for around 100 muncipalities in this state, the rest of the state would be like a mixture of West Virginia and Detroit. Take places like Radnor Township, Camp Hill, Upper Saint Clair, this state would be poor.
That said, I think we need to download as many of these services down to the local levels including education funding and police funding. There are muncipalities that pay for their services in this state. Every municipality should pay for a basic level of services on their own or they should not exist.
I am talking about transfers to local governments not individuals. I agree with you a place like Philadelphia would eat up funds, but come take a walk around the Wal-Mart in Waynesburg. See how many pregnant teenagers you can find or people using food stamp cards? We have terrible social problems in rural and urban areas that are being bred by government programs.
I think we both agree to just kill all these social programs and have the state government focus on law and order, transportation, and schools. Beyond that, leave it to local governments.
Have you read the Federal sentencing guidelines?
Bill is correct. The war on drugs is insane. It provides the reason to build more jails, employ more police, eviscerate the 4th, 5th and 6th amendments. This is a self-imposed stupidity. As long as the addicted do no harm while under the influence, the state has no legitimate interest.
Legalize it all. Teach your children well through word and deed. Punish those who do injury while under the influence. Treat those who are addicted and ask for help. Bury the dead. That's the best we can do.
And if the people of Export do not care to be subsumed by the Municipality of Murrysville, what then?
Should the people of Allegheny County be forced to merge with the City of Pittsburgh to bail Pittsburgh out?
It is amazing how politians push costs from one entity to another. When are they going to realize that " the taxpayer" they refer to is the same taxpayer that pays: Federal. State, School, Township, Sales, Energy, Gross Recipts Taxes, Gas Taxes,,,…….. We need to redesign how we deliver services to the Commonwealth. It is time to reorganize all levels of government
Exactly right, Dolley. Each failure of every government is always followed by a desire to make the governing body bigger, thus compounding the failures while hiding them with the illusion of progress and protecting that illusion with endlessly confusing layers and multiplicities of departments and agencies, all of which are staffed with people who feel they have a right to even more funding to hide their own failures. Such personalities, in fact, engage in a particularly destructive form of idol-worship (loving salaries and pensions more than the people made to pay for them) that hates the thought of loving one's neighbor.
I live in a community with no police and should not have to pay extra for the state police. The constitution states that it is the governments job to protect us and I already pay taxes to cover the police. Besides, I dont need thier protection, I have guns!