Fast Eddie's flood tax: Soaked citizenry

Monday, June 23, 2008

Gov. Ed Rendell is capitalizing on the flood victims in Iowa to soak the citizens of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Rendell proposes a 20-cent tax for every $100 in property insurance premiums to help pay for the state's flood-control projects. Kathleen McGinty, his secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, says it's "a matter of life and death."

No, it's a matter of tax and spend, in typical Rendellian style.

Fast Eddie's flood tax would apply to all business and residential property insurance -- regardless of whether the property is in a flood-prone area.


"We are one of the most flood-prone states in the nation," Ms. McGinty reminds.
Then why not use revenue from the existing Johnstown flood tax -- the 18 percent tax on alcohol enacted in 1936 supposedly to raise money for those flood victims? Today that revenue ends up in the state's general fund.

How many millions of dollars -- or is that billions of dollars -- have been generated by that tax? Has the state government spent every last dollar of it to prevent flooding?

If not, why?

And why should the state's responsible property owners, whose land is not prone to flooding, be forced to subsidize less-responsible land owners who choose to build on flood plains?

It's bad enough that Mr. Rendell's excessive taxation already has left Pennsylvanians high and dry.