- Hey Ben: Questions about tax amnesty
- US Rep. John Murtha, June 17, 1932 – February 8, 2010
- Getting Real Answers from Gubernatorial Candidates
- It is always a good thing when our government works well
- Courtfighter: Delaware County Judge Maureen Fitzpatrick A Bigot? You Judge How Often Bigotry Occurs In Media, PA
- We'll Get You Ready for State Budget Release Tuesday
- ONE Praises U.S. Treasury Announcement to Work with International Partners to Relieve Haiti’s Debt
- A giant toxic monster is coming your way OR no rigs before regs!
- We Need Immigration Reform Now! Why Stu Bykofsky got it wrong.
- Stop losing the war on health insurance reform
On the Newest Poll
Submitted by Dan U-A on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 8:27am.
As mentioned, there is a new poll out that shows a majority of Philadelphians are against raising taxes. Does this mean that the Mayor and City Council should take these results and instead of temporarily raising taxes, should destroy services, per the apocalyptic "plan b" that is circulating around? Of course not.
Let's quickly break down how this poll is different from the others:
First and foremost, what is missing from the poll, that would allow it to be really used for the purposes of policy? Questions about specific trade offs. I know this will shock you all, but when someone's taxes are about to be jacked up, and a poll asks them if they like that, they generally won't say yes. However, unlike previous polls and forums, here there were very few questions about specific trade offs- like about having to make cuts to the libraries, to the police, to the fire department.
Still, the budget forums and the poll had very different results. Does this show the budget forums weren't 'accurate,' because people are against raising taxes? No. My group in the Germantown budget forum people did not walk in and say "raise my taxes." Instead, after discussing everything for about an hour, and after not wanting to cut health centers, Fairmount Park, homeless shelters and police, our group was faced with obvious realities. That is when taxes were raised. I suspect it was similar in other groups.
Frankly, the answers to the only trade off questions that the poll did ask- about cutting the size of the city workforce and its benefits- surprise me. Why? If there was one set of questions where I thought people would say "cut," it would be in response to general questions about city workers. I would have expected a big majority of people to say, "sure shrink the City workforce by 250 people." But, nope, not even close- 2 to 1 against. And I certainly would have expected people to say city workers should pay more for health care. But there wasn't even majority support for that. The only thing that got majority support was asking workers to pay more into their pension.
The answers to this poll don't mean people are schizophrenic, or stupid, or that people "don’t want to make the tough choices—they want their leaders to make the choices for them." People were asked a set of questions, and answered them reasonably. But when looking at the results, it is simply useful to remember what questions were asked, and what were not.
Dan, do you maintain that
Dan, do you maintain that the budget forums are a representative sample of Philadelphians?
No, because it is virtually
No, because it is virtually impossible to for any voluntary participation to be perfectly representative.
However, I don't think we really know the extent of any level of difference from the forums based on the findings of this poll.
Would it really shock anyone if people in general didn't have
a strong comprehensive opinion about what SHOULD happen with the budget?
I've thought about the public's relationship to budgeting a lot. My first political job was with a group that lobbied against nuclear weapons spending.
I think the real benefits to representative democracy show up in budgeting.
Comprehensive budgeting is a long, tedious process (too tedious for the DN apparently), and requires the attention of full-time professionals. Even though people rarely have nice things to say about legislative bodies, they seem to acknowledge that.
People generally can tell you what they don't want -- budget cuts and tax hikes -- but when it comes even to deciding which of the two they prefer, it's been my experience, that there rarely is firm consensus.
Even when there seems to be, a compelling mayor or governor usually can swing it his or her way by making the case for the budget in the media.
I conclude that what people really want (at any given time) is a budget that a government can stand behind and explain.
Extremes in either cuts or hikes might be the exception, of course, and these are possibilities this year in Philly.
The budget forums were good places to hear people who were ready to form opinions, and it wouldn't surprise me if the opinions expressed there weren't somewhat representative of what would happen if the public in general were to take the time and study the budget.
In practice, however, that doesn't really happen.
Quick, yes or no
do you support the death penalty for the guy who raped and murdered your grandmother, if you are 100% certain he did it?
Asking questions in context makes a huge difference in the answers you get.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
The only way to a decent poll on this issue
Is to do exactly what Dan says we should do: ask a series of specific tradeoff questions: would you prefer to raise x tax by x amount in order to keep x libraries open.
If someone were to do that, I'm totally sure they would find that the public prefers to raise taxes than cut just about everything the city does now.
And my guess that the relative ranking of the taxes would be about what we find in this poll from most to least objectionable they would be property, sales, wage, and business taxes.
That doesn't mean this is what the city should do. I'm generally not in favor of government by plebiscite.
I do think the property tax ought to be raised more than others provided we create some protections for those with low incomes. The objection to the property tax comes about because unless you set up an escrow account with your mortgage, the tax is paid all at once and that is always hard while the other taxes are paid little by little. Maybe we should let people pay property taxes in 12 chunks along with their water bill.
i would love for a question to be asked
would you support cutting x (whatever the no needed) clerical/ administrative jobs so that taxes wouldn't have to be raised. personally i think when people are asked about city workers in general they're thinking of cops ,firemen,trash collectors ,rec center and health center employees etc and don't want those cut but when asked specifically about admin /clerical jobs ,i just believe that a maj would favour that.
Yeah the real questions remain
Why, if it does come down to property tax, is Council not already working on some way to make property taxes easier to budget and to put in those "circuit breakers" we all love to talk about because eventually, one way or the other, if it isn't property taxes this year, it will be fairer assessments some time in the future. Why not just get it done?
If Council is going to go with wage taxes, have they really polled the State Senate, because it really does not look like suburban Senators are going to play ball with that option. I say that as a casino opponent and not a fan of the State Senate generally. I just have a hard time believing its all bluff in Harrisburg and I don't think our Gov fanning the flames for so long before yo-yoing helped the issue. And for Council why stand your ground on wage taxes and not the casinos themselves earlier if you are determined to tell Harrisburg to eff themselves? Be principled about core issues of self-governance not one less than ideal tax over another less than ideal tax.
Lastly the other "big two". Why when one of two main take away stories of the Philly budget is that we keep spending more and more and more for incarcerating low-income offendors awaiting trial does this issue continue to not gain traction? And why when we are spending more and more shoring up the pension fund is Council so bent on making themselves look bad with the portion their own DROP participation contributes to the larger problem? Its not rocket science. People don't mind paying more for better services but they don't like paying more taxes to make up for lost time on building up the pension fund pot, even as their elected officials are personally doing their part to drain that pot even more quickly. You don't have to be a political genius to figure that one out.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.