A Chance for the 127th to Shine

November 10, 2005 by Matt Heckman.

I want to lay out a challenge to Stefan Kosikowski, and Jim Reitnour on some questions relating to our State, as well as what they would do to benefit the City of Reading. You will find my questions to be completely neutral, and I think both candidates will enjoy some of these since the business as usual crowd sweeps them under the rug whenever they get a chance. I will only post both candidates answers when I receive both of them. Now down to the questions.

1. Homeland Security in the state. As you know our federal government neglects to secure our borders both north, and south. Recently Al-Jazera the Arab news network known for broadcasting videos of the beheading of Americans in Iraq have been down at the Mexican border showing off how easy it is to cross it. The other problem is when we catch these illegal aliens they seldom get deported. Illegal aliens have been a burden on the tax bill for tax payers for many years, especially in our schools, and our hospitals, and a lot of people are getting fed up with it. Since the Federal Government, and the current administration fails to crack down on this as granted to them in our constitution, would either of you support an amendment to our state constitution giving us the power to take these matters into our own hands, and deport these Illegals from our state?

2. Economy and Transportation. We have been having a constant debate for years about the economy of Reading. I mentioned on a post on Jim Reitnour’s blog recently that I believe one of the problems is that Reading is an industrial climate, and sadly NAFTA has killed that aspect of our economy. I also mentioned that Reading has to stop living in the past, and make the necessary changes to adapt to modern economic times. One of them is transportation. We have been auguring for years about reconnecting the rail line to Philadelphia for example. How would both of you go about pursuing the example I just mentioned, along with other road projects to connect to our surrounding counties better, and how it will benefit our economy in Berks County?

3. Property Taxes, and the overall Tax system. This is the most important thing on voters minds right now. I have read both your ideas on how to tackle this, and I will be honest with you that they are both good, and I believe that you are both sincere about this. Stefan correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I read of your plan it is very similar to how Delaware handles their tax structure. You want to promote a progressive income tax structure on earned, and unearned income. I was also in agreement with you that one from of taxation is enough, and one of our problems in this state is we have so many hidden fees, and other little taxes which we can do away with, and have a one way channel of funding our state. My question on your plan is relating to the tax brackets you propose. How would you ensure the voters that our tax system under your plan would not inflate into a small version of the IRS, and would your plan include any deductions like mortgage interest, donations, medical expenses, etc.?

As for Jim Reitnour’s plan yours consists of raising the income tax to 4.25%, and lowering the sales tax to 4% to cover most things, but leaving the exemptions in place for food, clothing, and medicine. You also stated on the Reading Eagle Blog that you would allow the sales tax to cover “expensive clothing lines”. My question to you is how would you go about targeting those lines, and how would you ensure businesses that they could still compete boarding Delaware with no sales tax?

4. My final question to both of you is this. The state senate will be voting at the end of the month to increase the real estate transfer tax, and if passed could raise closing costs to over $4,000.00. People out in Philadelphia are scared to death of this, and radio ads are all over the place. If you had the power to vote on this measure would you vote it down?

I hope we can do more of these type of questions in the future. I look forward to hearing your answers.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 23 Comments »