Centre Daily Times du lieu suivant : State College, Pennsylvania • A3

Centre Daily Times, Tuesday, August 4, 2009 A3www.centredaily.com some basic government Snyder said. differences that exist are real and remain unre- Republicans had urged Democrats to join them in voting for an alternative ver- sion of the legislation, which would have spent $27.3 bil- lion to operate the state and its programs for the entire fiscal year. just about state said Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny. also about the people that pay the state workers, the state taxpayers.

They de- serve for you to stand up for them and pass a bona fide The Democratic-con- trolled House also voted 103-95 to reject an alterna- tive Republican budget, with Rep. Dennis R- Philadelphia, the only vote across party lines. floor debate be- gan with uncertainty about whether a third alternative would be considered a bill developed by conservative Democrats with Republican help. Rep. Nick Kotik, D- Allegheny, withdrew that amendment after Democrat- ic leaders promised to aban- don a proposed increase in the personal income tax that Rendell supports.

It was a last-minute change of heart: Less than an hour before the session started, Kotik said he stood by his initiative as he entered a meeting with party leaders. Speaker Keith McCall, D- Carbon, said the proposed 16 percent income tax increase had been off the table in negotiations for some time, although that position had not been acknowledged publicly. really has not been a matter of discussion for well over a McCall said. House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, said the Blue Dogs had been intimidated into backing off. leaders scared them back out of Smith said.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R- Delaware, called ruling out an income tax increase positive but cautioned that other rev- enue issues were unre- solved. their idea is simply to replace $1.5 billion in per- sonal income taxes with $1.5 billion in other taxes, the result is the same $1.5 bil- lion in new Pileggi said. not Democrats will need addi- tional revenues to support the spending they want, given that Pennsylvania ended its fiscal year with a $3.2 billion revenue gap caused by dwindling tax re- ceipts during the economic downturn. can expect the gov- ernor to start pushing some form of sales tax Smith said. Since the start of the year, Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a fierce ideological debate over whether to raise taxes, which programs to cut and how much money to spend.

Senate Republican lead- ers have consistently said they would not consent to an increase in the sales tax rate currently 6 percent in most of the state, and one point higher in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties. The sales tax could, howev- er, be broadened to cover more items. House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, said he does not expect any effort to tax food or cloth- ing, calling such a proposal McCall spokesman Bob Caton said House Democrat- ic leaders wanted to resume conference committee talks as soon as possible. The committee met in public for two days last week but made no discernible progress. tax system is already inade- quate to support the promises our government has said Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury Depart- ment official in the Reagan adminis- tration who is now vice president of the Peter G.

Peterson Foundation. just adds to the While much of Washington is focused on how to pay for new pro- grams such as overhauling health care at a cost of $1 trillion over the next decade existing programs are feeling the pinch, too. Social Security is in danger of run- ning out of money earlier than the government projected just a few month ago. Highway, mass transit and airport projects are at risk because fuel and industry taxes are declining. The national debt already exceeds $11 trillion.

And bills just completed by the House would boost domestic spending by 11 percent in 2010 and military spending by 4 per- cent. For this report, the AP analyzed an- nual tax receipts dating back to the inception of the federal income tax in 1913. Tax receipts for the 2009 budget year were available through June. They were compared to the same period last year. The budget year runs from October to September, meaning there will be three more months of receipts this year.

Is there a way out of the financial mess? A key factor is the health. The future of current pro- grams not to mention the new ones Obama is proposing will depend largely on how fast the economy recovers from the recession, said William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center. numbers for 2009 are striking, head-snapping. But what really mat- ters is what happens he said. just one year, then a remarkable thing, but totally man- ageable.

If the economy recover soon, it matter what your social, economic and political agenda is. not going to be any revenue to pay for A small part of the drop in tax receipts can be attributed to new tax credits for individuals and corpora- tions enacted in February as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package. The sheer magnitude of the tax decline, however, points to the deep recession that is reducing incomes, wiping out corporate profits and straining government programs. Social Security tax receipts are down less than a percentage point from last year, but in May the govern- ment had been projecting a slight increase. At the time, the best estimate was that Social Security would start to pay out more money than it receives in taxes in 2016, and that the fund would be depleted in 2037 unless changes are enacted.

Some experts think the sour econo- my has made those numbers outdat- ed. could easily move that num- ber up three or four years, then talking about 2013, and not very far said Kent Smetters, associate professor of insurance and risk man- agement at the University of Pennsyl- vania. The projections included best- and worst-case scenar- ios. Under the worst, Social Security would start to pay out more money than it received in taxes in 2013, and the fund would be depleted in 2029. The trustees are still confi- dent the solvency dates are within the range of the worst-case scenario, said Jason Fichtner, the Social Security acting deputy com- missioner.

not outside our boundaries Fichtner said. the recovery comes, see how that plays The toll on Social Secu- rity makes it even more urgent for Congress to address the long- term solvency, said Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Aging Committee. the past year, millions of older Americans have watched their retirement savings crumble, making the guaranteed income of Social Secu- rity more important than Kohl said. President Barack Obama has said he wants to tackle Social Security next year, after he clears an already crowd- ed agenda that includes overhauling health care, addressing climate change and imposing new regulations on financial companies.

Medicare tax receipts are also down less than a percentage point for the year, pretty close to government projections. Medicare started paying out more money than it received last year. Meanwhile, the recession is taking a toll on fuel and industry excise taxes that pay for highway, mass transit and airport projects. Fuel taxes that sup- port road construction and mass tran- sit projects are on pace to fall for the second straight year. Receipts from taxes on jet fuel and airline tickets are also dropping, meaning Congress will have to bor- row more money to fund airport proj- ects and the Federal Aviation Admin- istration.

Last week, Congress voted to spend $7 billion to replenish the high- way fund, which would otherwise run out of money in August. Congress spent $8 billion to replenish the fund last year. Rep. Richard Neal, chair- man of the House subcommittee that oversees fuel taxes, is working on a package to make the fund more self- sufficient. The U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, which back many tax increas- es, supports increasing the federal gasoline tax, currently 18.4 cents per gallon. Neal said he endorsed a spe- cific plan. But, he added, keep going back to the general any other media whether it is the CDT, the (Altoona) Mirror down here or another radio station you really have to look at what market is being served properly and what market is being Davies said. obviously talk is really hot these days certainly there is an explosion in talk in the United The media group is hardly alone in ending its broadcast of modern rock. In Boston, New York and Denver, major networks have announced they are pulling out of modern or alternative rock, many of them switching to talk or sports formats.

been a move to FM news and talk for 20 years but it has picked up a lot of steam over the last said Sean Ross, executive edi- tor of radio-info. com, an online industry group. Ross said the decline of rock music on the FM dial cannot be attributed to any one issue, but rather a culmination of many changes from the emergence of satellite service and Internet stations to a lack of super-groups within the rock genre. there are all those issues, to which you can now add that guys ages 12 to 34 are less beholden to radio than they were 15 years he said, as technology overtakes the FM airwaves. will be a moment in the not-to-distant future whether wireless broadband in the car or everyone has a 3G (wireless) network if WQWK goes away just listen to the or WRFF from Philly or whoever you Still, said Ross, even with the choices available to listeners the loss of a local rock voice was and happening all Forever statement came after the group declined to comment for nearly a week about the pending format change.

When con- tacted last week about the end of QWK Rock, Davies said he comment on what is going on in our other On Monday, when he spoke on behalf of the media group, he would only say that decision not to announce the change was a agement thought it was just best to let the format be born and comment after the format was he said. Nick Malawskey can be reached at 235-3928. Radio, from A1 Budget, from A1 Taxes, from A1 JOIN ONLINE DISCUSSION AT CENTREDAILY.COM Read online, among dozens of comments about this story. You can join the conversa- tion today. cannot believe this.

I went through high school AND col- lege with this station in the background. It was the only decent one you could get! I even live in State College any- more and I could cry over this kopannie talk radio makes big bucks due to the fact that a lot of folks are starving for some truth in the arena. This is a good thing for the general Fred radio is noth- ing more than trash spewing propaganda for those (who) care not to think. Who in their right mind lis- tens to people who say one think when they are in power but another when they kfred a shame that an era has been yanked from the peo- ple of State College. I was responsible for flipping QWK Rock from Top 40 to the rock format in 1988 and was very happy to be a part of a com- munity active radio station that had its hands in everything from the Dance Marathon to the Regatta.

This is yet another incident to support my theory of how greed and lack of foresight has ruined the radio Jonas Hunter Change in federal tax receipts, fiscal years NOTE: Data from 2009 is through June; the fiscal year ends in September. Federal tax revenues take major hit Tax receipts, driven by big drops in individual income and corporate taxes, are on pace to post their biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression. SOURCES: Office of Management and Budget; Treasury Department AP -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 percent 1980 Individual Corporate -27 -14 -22 -57 54 meeting that the goal was to hear about an alternative to Penn State buying the land. reality is a lot of opposition to he said of universi- ty ownership. He said his proposal might not be but it creates an oppor- tunity to hear from the Game Com- mission, which had never really been invited to the discussion table.

Capouillez said while the master plan a Pittsburgh consultant pre- pared says the Game mission with the range of uses proposed for the property, that reflect what the agency is capable of doing. not new to the manage- ment of game Capouillez said, noting that the commission owns more than 1.4 million acres. His presentation included other numbers, lists of resources and guidelines Capouillez said the com- mission has and could use to over- see the Rockview property. That included spending more than $28 million last year in support of wildlife habitat management, reclaiming surface mines and con- serving open fields in some cases. He said the commission has the staff expertise, equipment and money to manage the land.

Because the stream, habi- tat and location are unique, he said, it would be a priority for manage- ment. He went on to say that if the commission looked at 500 proper- ties, the Rockview land would fall in the top one or two. proposal includes requiring the Game Commission to lease the land to Penn State for 35 years for farming and agriculture work. Supervisors peppered Capouillez and other Game Commission offi- cials with questions after the pres- entation, including whether the commission could trade the land in the future or do things like agree to allow a bike trail on it. Capouillez said concerns could be included in a deed restriction.

But, in response to a question from Chairman John Elnitski about forming a review board that would look at projects the commission was considering, Capouillez said the commission would listen to sug- gestions and concerns, but delegate those responsibilities. Elnitski also said he 100 per- cent certain that hunting should take place on the land. Capouillez said there are very few hunting accidents and the land would have the needed oversight. Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648. Thousands of youths were sentenced before corrupt judge earlier this decade By Michael Rubinkam The Associated Press ALLENTOWN The state Supreme Court bowed to pressure and abandoned its plan to destroy the records of thousands of juve- niles who appeared before a cor- rupt judge between 2003 and 2008.

In a letter made public Monday, the high court said it now supports the preservation of as many as 6,500 juvenile court records that contain evidence of the scandal in northeastern Pennsylvania. The decision will make it easier for youths to pursue federal claims against former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who was charged earlier this year with taking millions of dollars in kick- backs to put juvenile offenders in privately owned detention centers. The preservation will that the whole story of what we think is probably the largest judicial corruption scandal in the history of the country to be told and to be under- said Marsha Levick, legal director of the Philadelphia- based Juvenile Law Center, which repre- sents some of the youths. The Supreme reversal ap- parently puts an end to a dispute in which Levick and other at- torneys had accused the justices of sabo- taging abil- ity to recover dam- ages from Ciavarella in federal court. About 400 individuals ranging from their teens to their early 20s have sued Ciavarella, claiming he ran a kangaroo court in which he systemically denied them their con- stitutional rights, including the right to counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Other defendants include former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan and Luzerne County tax- payers. Ciavarella and Conahan pleaded guilty in February to fraud. Their plea agreements called for sentences of 87 months in prison, far below federal sentencing guide- lines. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik rejected the agree- ments, saying the judges had failed to accept responsibility for their actions.

Ciavarella and Conahan may decide to withdraw the guilty pleas and head to trial, or keep the pleas intact and allow Kosik to sen- tence them. While the approximately 400 plaintiffs got to keep their records, the Supreme Court had initially ordered the destruction of about 6,100 others effectively preclud- ing those individuals from also pur- suing civil damages. The justices have since concluded that keeping a single, sealed copy of each record would not prevent the convictions from being vacat- ed and their public records from being erased, said Pennsylvania Court Administrator Zygmont Pines. The paramount concern is to that the tainted convic- tions of affected juveniles in Luzerne County be undone as ex- peditiously as Pines wrote in a July 31 letter to U.S. Dis- trict Judge Richard Caputo, who is overseeing the federal litigation.

Berks County Senior Judge Arthur Grim, whom the justices ap- pointed in February to review cases handled by Ciavarella, must now issue an order for the records to be preserved. That is expected to be a formality. Recession takes toll on revenue Deal set to pay state workers QWK Rock flips format State makes case for canyon land Land, from A1 Pa. court: Save records in judicial scandal Ciavarella Conahan.