{"id":8451,"date":"2012-04-20T11:28:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T15:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=8451"},"modified":"2012-04-20T11:28:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T15:28:24","slug":"pileggihoward-forum-sparks-fly-over-debt-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=8451","title":{"rendered":"Pileggi\/Howard forum: sparks fly over debt, reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

League of Women Voters event at Crosslands shows stark difference in state Senate primary battle<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Roger Howard (left) and state Sen. Dominic Pileggi traded barbs \u2014 and showed vastly differing visions for Pennsylvania during a League of Women Voters forum Thursday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

PENNSBURY \u2014 In more than an hour of sometimes testy exchanges, the two Republican candidates for state Senate from the 9th District showed very different visions both in terms of the reality of governing as well as philosophy, during a League of Women Voters forum Thursday night.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-9), facing a primary challenge from Roger Howard of East Marlborough, spent much of the evening trading barbs with his opponent in front of a packed room at Crosslands, estimated to be well over 200 people.<\/p>\n

Howard, who enjoys support from local Tea Party groups, argued for less government, lowering state debt and ending government subsidies to business and special interests, while Pileggi, who also serves as Majority Leader of the state Senate, argued his opponent\u2019s positions amounted to \u201cgreat sound bites\u201d but lacked the reality required for governing the commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Both candidates answered questions from the audience on topics from pensions to property taxes.<\/p>\n

Right from the start, Howard was on the attack, calling Pileggi \u201cone of the major obstacles to reform\u201d in Harrisburg, despite voters having sent an all GOP legislature to work with a new GOP governor, Tom Corbett in 2010. He also criticized Pileggi for spending on corporations that give money to the senator and other Harrisburg power players, and a series of scandals by Republicans and Democrats charged with using legislative staff for campaign purposes.<\/p>\n

Pileggi, battling laryngitis, aggressively defended his record, citing his battle to curtail spending under former Gov. Ed Rendell.<\/p>\n

\u201cPennsylvania was going to become another California, if we didn\u2019t step in,\u201d he said, referring to himself and other Republican leaders in Harrisburg.<\/p>\n

Howard countered that he questioned Pileggi\u2019s claim at fiscal conservancy, with the commonwealth increasing spending from $41 billion in 2002 when he took office to nearly $61 billion \u2014 numbers he says have been hidden by borrowing money to pay for maintenance projects, he said.<\/p>\n

Pileggi defended the current budget, saying cuts had been made and that likely budget coming out of Harrisburg this June would again be lower than the year before, for the second straight year and again would feature lowered franchise taxes and no tax increases. He added that reductions can\u2019t just be made to the budget in a random fashion, but have to be done in a \u201cdisciplined\u201d way.<\/p>\n

On jobs, while both agreed that the state needs to improve the climate for business \u2014 including cutting the corporate tax \u2014 the two differed on what the state needs to do to compete with other states and foreign countries. While Howard opposes tax breaks and subsidies for business, Pileggi argued that neighboring states and even other countries won\u2019t hesitate to offer perks to bring in industries and jobs. Without them, he said, Pennsylvania will be left on the outside looking in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be able to take advantage of our assets,\u201d Pileggi said.<\/p>\n

On the issue of state pensions \u2014 including teacher pensions, which have become an increasing financial burden for local school districts \u2014 Pileggi said some reform had already been accomplished, but much more work was to be done, including moving state employees from \u201cdefined benefit\u201d plans to \u201cdefined contribution\u201d plans similar to 401K retirement plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re out of step with the private sector,\u201d he said. He said he expected the legislature to take up the issue this fall.<\/p>\n

Howard was quick to lay the issue at Pileggi\u2019s feet, suggesting that in 2003 the legislature decided to cut contributions to the pension fund, leading the current underfunding of the state employee and teacher pension system. He also argued that state judges and members of the legislature are getting a better pension deal than teachers and state employees \u2014 because of a higher maximum rate of pay 90% versus 75% \u2014 Pileggi was being \u201csomewhat disingenuous to talk pension reform when you\u2019ve padded your own pension.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two also crossed swords on the issues of sprawl and redevelopment. Howard argued that it should be left in the hands of the private sector and that government should stay out of it.<\/p>\n

Pileggi suggested that stance reflected a naive view.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is always cheaper to develop on virgin soil than in urban cores,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to provide incentive. If not, you\u2019ll just have sprawl along the interstates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two offered starkly different views about working with Democrats \u2014 who while currently in the minority in the legislature have been needed to pass various bills in the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a fairly large and good record of working with people from across the aisle,\u201d Pileggi said. \u201cIf you have a divided government, as we\u2019ve had at times, you have to find a way to work with the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Howard said he felt he could work with Democrats if \u201cthey are above board about where their objectives are\u201d he said that it was important for an elected official to never give up their principles, suggesting that he would find much of what he felt the Democrats support in variance with his beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I could work in concert with standard Democrat principles,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n

On property taxes, the pair again showed a great difference in opinion. Howard called for the end of the Act 1 legislation and a new laws requiring a public referendum for any school district to raise taxes. He also expressed support for House Bill 1776, which would increase the state sales tax to pay for schools and eliminate property taxes.<\/p>\n

Pileggi said that local property taxes amount to about $13 billion \u2014 nearly half as much as the current state budget, a number he said a small sales tax increase could never replace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just not going to happen in the next five years,\u201d Pileggi said. \u201cIt\u2019s a pipe dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he thought was more realistic was program for senior citizen property tax relief, a program estimated to cost between $2 billion and $4 billion, he said. While he acknowledged that finding even that much money would be difficult, he said he thought it would be achievable in the near term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

League of Women Voters event at Crosslands shows stark difference in state Senate primary battle By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com PENNSBURY \u2014 In more than an hour of sometimes testy exchanges, the two Republican candidates for state Senate from the 9th District showed very different visions both in terms of the reality of governing as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[252,1000,128,82],"class_list":["post-8451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-election-2012","tag-howard","tag-pileggi","tag-state-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}