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EDITORIAL
She’s too fat for us
By the time this newspaper hits the streets, Mayor John Street probably will have vetoed a package of tax cuts that City Council passed on Memorial Day by a razor-thin majority.
Failure to override that veto would be a shame. Cutting the city’s wage and business taxes NOW, not later, can be done without jeopardizing public safety. Believe it or not, there’s still plenty of fat in Philadelphia government. Does anybody in his right mind really buy the notion that the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth from their municipal workers?
Joe Average must live within his means; why cannot America’s sixth-largest city do the same? (Yes, we’re the sixth-largest now, because Phoenix, Ariz., has overtaken us in part because of a tax-induced population hemorrhage.)
Denizens of Northeast Philadelphia have long felt that they don’t get their fair share of services for the taxes they pay. Certainly that perception is not unique to the Northeast, but in politics, as in real life, perception is reality.
As City Council returns to square one on the budget and tax cuts, the city must not give away the store when it negotiates contracts with the municipal-workers unions this summer. City workers already have a fabulous deal that cannot be found in the private sector — great pay for too little work, not-so-great expectations for productivity, taxpayer-financed health premiums, blah, blah, blah.
Folks who live in Philadelphia, do business in Philadelphia, or both, probably would not mind high taxes as much if they got more bang for their bucks.
The question is not, can Philadelphia afford to slice its tax burden? The question is, can we afford not to? If the city has the money for stadiums, sweetheart deals and overpaid bureaucrats, it can find the money to make this a city that welcomes residents and businesses with open arms.
The will and the way are there. ••