Dave Mancuso dot Com

Governor Ed Rendell today unveiled a new taxing system to fund public education. It looks like everyone in PA will be affected.

The governor talks about eliminating our property taxes. What he means by that is that he wants to reduce our property taxes by 15%-30%. I don’t mean any comments here as a slam to Rendell–politics is all about positioning and spin, and Rendell could be targeting taxes a step at a time. Regardless, property taxes would go down 15%-30%, not all the way as the rhetoric suggests.

To make up for this property tax cut, the personal income tax in PA will go up an additional .065%. Rendell also wants to raise the income tax another .3% (why the .065% and the .3% are split out, I’m not sure. It seems that the .3% may be a short term temporary increase). The total PA income tax would now be 3.75%, relatively low as state personal income taxes go.

From what I can tell, the personal income tax will make up the loss from property tax reduction plus some. We (as a state) will all be paying a bit more in total taxes, depending on your income vs. your property value.

To provide even more funding, the governor wants to increase some so-called “sin taxes.” He’ll tax slot machines at racetracks and increase taxes on malt beverages (luckily, my fondness for Yuengling Porter tapered off a few years ago–y’know, it is an internationally rated five star beer). He also wants to increase fines on reckless drivers (who can argue with that?).

What does this mean for schools in the end? For one thing, the state share of local school budgets would go up, and the local share would go down. Local districts would have less control over their budgeting. Secondly, it seems that the richer districts would get less funding and the poorer districts would get more funding. Hopefully your district wouldn’t become one of the losers in this scenario.

More importantly, no single school district has any indication of what their individual state $$ allotment will be. This is very bad. School districts at this time have no way to guess what their budgets might be for July 1, 2003. I repeat: this is a very hairy situation. These school budgets must be in final form in April or May at the latest for public review and second (final) votes in June. So the PA government has four to six weeks or so to settle this and get new aid ratio numbers out to the districts. Otherwise, this turns into a colossal mess.

The next few weeks will be very interesting.

If you want the most up to date immediate newsfeed on the war in Iraq, go here.

Much thanks to Wil Wheaton for the link.

This is why I have mixed feelings about the war. I see what the anti-war people are saying, but I also think they’re being incredibly naive.

Regardless of Bush’s true motives, is it possible that the war in Iraq is justified for humanitarian reasons? Why is ethnic cleansing in Bosnia wrong, but the same thing with Kurds in Iraq OK?

Just a question.

Welcome to my life, where every day is an adventure and an education. This weekend the lesson is “How a Frost-Free Faucet Works.” The stopper in the faucet goes way back into the pipe, so the faucet never freezes. At least, it never freezes unless you leave a hose connected to the faucet, which traps water in the faucet pipe, which can then freeze and burst.
Unfortunately, the lesson was learned after I left a hose on the faucet all winter and it froze and burst.

As they say on the airline seat info cards, “Ahora Usted Sabe.”

Man–I’m watching the Academy Awards, where virtually everyone has avoided political comments, until Michael Moore just won for Bowling for Columbine. He launches immediately into a diatribe about our “fictitious president” sending us into a war for fictitious reasons. Lots of booing. A few claps, but most of the people are really ticked. Everyone seems really embarassed.

Now it’s a few minutes later and Steve Martin comes up to say that “It’s so sweet backstage. The Teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo…”

Only in America.

I’ve been looking for a web reference to Robert Heinlein’s house for several years. Heinlein designed and built his own house in Colorado Springs just as the ’50s began. Later he designed and built another house called “Bonny Doon” when he moved to Santa Cruz in the ’60s. These houses were full of ingenious features. The Colorado Springs house was featured in the June 1952 issue of Popular Mechanics, and I’ve finally found a reference to it. The article itself is scanned into JPEG files and posted on the site. Now if only I can find more references to the “Bonny Doon” house–the only one I’ve found so far is here. The relevant quote from the site: “The house itself was spectacular: Round, all local redwood, with a bonsai garden under a dome at the center of it. The entire inner periphery was floor-to-celing bookshelves.”

This is a great quote from the Scobelizer weblog today (now syndicated thirdhand by me):

“Funny quote: “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, and Germany doesn’t want to go to war.” From Terry Farrell in a newsgroup I frequent.”

Mike Pinkerton articulated a popular viewpoint about being told that the time is over to protest the war, now get in line behind your country.

I see his point–free speech is a strength of our country, and how dare the government tell us what to think and that “it’s basically too late, so shut up.” That’s bad mojo on the part of the government.

However: I think that most people would agree that we should at least support our troops that are out there even if we decry the reason for their involvement (if you don’t agree, then you may as well stop reading–this post is lost on you). Now, as a soldier in a life or death situation, it is a crushing blow to your morale to hear that people at home hope you’re OK, but they really think you have no business being where you are and doing what you must do. In combat, doubt and hesitation can get you killed. I have no problem that people feel strongly against the war, but I hope that no soldier ever hears of the discord over the war until they’re out of harm’s way. I’ve never been a soldier, but I have the utmost respect for those who put their lives on the line. I hope as few as possible leave this world in battle, and for those who do I hope they know how much their lives mean to us.

This is a blog reportedly from a person in Baghdad. Check it out. There are some doubts that the blog is authentic, but this blog says it seems real.

I’m now blogging a second site using my friend Brad’s Frequency application and Blogger. You can find the “Digital Frequency” website here. It’ll be interesting to see how things evolve from here–Frequency is a clean, simple program that does what it advertises. Vive La Difference!