PA Democrats Spout Lame Reasons to Support Severance Tax @ Hearing

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It seems no matter how many times we calmly, rationally, factually respond to and refute the intellectual dishonesty around the issue of a severance tax in Pennsylvania, PA Democrats pop up to make the same already-refuted, debunked lies they spew, again and again. They must be of the opinion that if you repeat the same lies long enough, people will begin to believe them. And so a group of elected (and appointed) Democrat “leaders” gathered in Wilkes-Barre yesterday to rehash and repeat the same tired old lies about a severance tax. The organizer of the event was State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski (Democrat from Wilkes-Barre) who stated at the event he doesn’t think the gas companies pay “their fair share.” That is such a bogus statement in so many ways. When did privately earned money suddenly belong to the state in the first place? Does Rep. Pashinski know that drillers already pay a severance tax–called an impact fee? And that by passing a severance tax on top of an impact fee, PA vaults to the top of the list–it would have the highest taxation of the industry in the United States at an effective rate of 9% (see PA Independent Fiscal Office: Wolf Severance Tax Highest in U.S.). There is NO doubt that drillers would shut down their programs in PA if such a tax were passed. But perhaps that’s what Rep. Pashinksi wants? Also at the meeting was a Democrat who is usually reasonable–Dennis Davin, secretary of the state Department of Community and Economic Development. Davin and his crew have done good work for the state, but unfortunately he answers to Gov. Tom Wolf (worst PA governor in living memory), and Wolf forces Davin to attend these types of meetings to wave the flag for Wolf’s idiotic severance tax proposal. It must be demeaning for Davin. If Davin really believes what he says about Wolf’s severance tax–we guess he’s not as smart as we thought he was. Here’s how the fawning establishment press reported yesterday’s “tax the $%#! out of drillers” meeting in Wilkes-Barre…

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