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Working Americans pay their share of taxes

A claim that working Pennsylvanians need to “pay their fair share” all too often bubbles to the surfaces of some of our society’s debates on tax policy. The rhetoric that surrounds perennial pushes to eliminate or significantly reduce property tax burdens in Pennsylvania is one place this claim sometimes surfaces, municipal officials’ pursuit of greater latitude for cities and boroughs to assess heavier taxes on payroll is another. The reality is that working Pennsylvanians — and working Americans, particularly the middle class — pay thousands of dollars a year in ...

Fight against fentanyl ongoing

“It was probably the most shocking thing I discovered on the campaign trail.” U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pittsburgh, said this to columnist Salena Zito in a column the Sun-Gazette published Monday about the nation’s fentanyl crisis. “The scale, 4,000 Pennsylvanians, 100,000 Americans, and you look at those statistics and people’s eyes glaze over (at) the numbers, but again, that is someone’s family in those numbers. The reference point is how many people died in Vietnam. Remember, 52,000 people died in Vietnam. One hundred thousand died (from) fentanyl in one year. So ...

What other newspapers are saying: Court ruling a reminder about limits

Judges occasionally declare federal laws unconstitutional. But usually when a law passed by Congress has been on the books for more than 150 years, it’s in the clear. Not so for the federal ban on homemade whiskey, vodka and gin. Recently, an appeals court invalidated a federal law dating to 1868 that criminalizes at-home distilleries. The spirited ruling is a boon to small-time liquor hobbyists and entrepreneurs — but also an important statement on the limits of the federal government’s taxing power. Congress imposed the ban as a companion to legislation taxing alcohol and ...

Inflation will be factor in election

Eye-opening at the top of the Wall Street Journal’s April 11-12 edition was the headline “Inflation hits two-year high.” Reporting that consumer prices jumped 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the largest increase in two years, the Journal said the April 10 inflation report from the U.S. Labor Department “was in line with the expectations of economists surveyed” by the newspaper “but the March reading was much hotter than February’s gain of 2.4%” The Journal continued: “The report is the first to capture the impact of the Iran war on inflation.” The Journal ...

Candidate right to call out aversion to transparency

Stacy Garrity, state treasurer and presumptive Republican nominee for governor, recently held a campaign stop in Harrisburg focused on one specific incident from the Shapiro administration: The use of non-disclosure agreements and a settlement to cover up a staffer’s sexual harassment of a co-worker. Garrity and her Republican supporters are right to turn the public’s attention to, as she put it, “the lack of accountability Josh Shapiro has delivered, the lack of transparency Josh Shapiro has offered, and the trust that Josh Shapiro has eroded.” As the Sun-Gazette noted in an ...

What other newspapers are saying: Rural county promotes agriculture

When the average city dweller thinks of agriculture and farm life, they likely conjure up a bucolic, timeless scene of the farmer toiling in the fields using tools invented long ago. But in Frederick County, when you think of agriculture, you really should be thinking about innovation and experimentation. That is the reality of farm life in the 21st century here. The county government is aware of the change, and it is making the speed of change even faster, by offering cash grants to farmers seeking to innovate. It is a successful program, at minimal cost to the taxpayers. The ...