PA POLL: Don't make health, education cuts - tax drilling, voters say

[jefferson_dem]

Poll: Don't make health, education cuts - tax drilling, voters say
By DAVID FOSTER
Philadelphia Daily News

It hasn't gone unnoticed to Pennsylvanians that the natural-gas industry is drilling the Marcellus Shale without paying taxes, while Gov. Corbett has been drilling into education and Medicaid.

According to a Daily News/Franklin & Marshall College Poll, Pennsylvanians strongly oppose Corbett's education and Medicaid cuts. Meanwhile, they favor taxing the natural-gas industry, and smokeless tobacco and cigars, and selling the state-owned liquor stores to private companies.

Corbett proposed slicing $1 billion from education spending in his first budget address this month without even considering taxing the natural-gas industry, seemingly without care about the negative response that would follow.

An overwhelming 78 percent of Pennsylvanians surveyed oppose that reduction of state funding to local school districts, while 67 percent oppose cutting state funding in half for the state's public universities. Seventy percent of Pennsylvanians oppose cuts to Medicaid.

To offset the huge cuts, almost two in three Pennsylvanians favor taxing companies that extract and sell natural gas, and placing new taxes on the sale of smokeless tobacco and cigars.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/elections/118152589.html

[PA Democrat]

1. Thrilled to recommend.

[enough]

2. In the comments section of our local paper ( in SE PA) people are always railing against

taxing the natural-gas drillers. It seems they hear the word TAX and decide it must be bad and they have to oppose it. They don't seem to understand that it would be revenue for PA.

This poll is very surprising to me, and very welcome.

[drm604]

3. I wonder how many of those letters are from an organized campaign.

In fact, I wonder how many of them are even from real Pennsylvanians.

[enough]

8. I've started to wonder about that myself. (nt)

[yellowcanine]

4. "Tax baby Tax"

Seriously. We need to. Maybe such a slogan wouldn't be politically wise but we should do it. Tax all extractive industries - after all the gas etc. is not "owned" by the oil companies, it belongs to everyone. Landowners get a royalty, the public should get a royalty also.

[Scuba]

5. Bingo!

[Patiod]

6. "That would be greedy"

said the guy* from the Koch-funded libertarian mouthpiece group representing the drilling companies on a SE PA morning talk show on our local NPR station last week.

Greedy.

It would be GREEDY to tax them in order to pay for testing, cleanup/remediation, road construction, and other costs arising from fracking.

Really - someone actually said that.

*Nathan A Benefield, Director of Policy Research for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives.

[ladywnch]

7. about freaking time! instead of paying THEM to drill....let them pay the state to drill! n/t

[Politicalboi]

9. Good idea but

The natural gas company will turn around and raise gas prices to pay their taxes and then some. Just like PG&E are getting fined 1 million a day till they produce papers on the pressure checks in the housing district that blew up due to bad gas lines 6 months ago here in Ca. It sounds good, but they get their money back in the long run. These fines and taxes work better for companies that we can CHOOSE to use rather than forced to use.