At POWER’s citywide meeting last Tuesday night, leaders from congregations across Philadelphia met to begin deciding on specific policy goals for our “We Make Philly” affordability campaign.
And decisions were made. The criteria for our policy objectives are that they make a wide positive difference for Philadelphians, they are easily explainable, and that they help us build our power – increasing our base of engaged citizens and aligning electees with our work – so that we can build on our successes and accomplish more to improve the city.
In some sense, we believe that we are at an opportune time to be launching an affordability campaign that is both about finding breaks for folks who are economically strapped and also looking to increase revenue. The city leaders finally seem to be acknowledging that there is a disastrous budget crisis coming over the horizon, but no one has taken any leadership in beginning to develop plans for the added revenue that is going to be necessary. We want to get out in front of the Mayor and the City Council so they come to understand how POWER Interfaith and the people of the city can be a help to them. We also like to see if our City Council could be transformed into a more creative and constructive governing body.
The three policy objectives chosen were:
~ An increase in the homestead exemption which currently reduces the taxable assessed value of your primary residence by $100,000, saving homeowners up to $1,399 annually on their property taxes. Raising it some amount to be determined is disproportionately advantageous for homeowners with lower value appraised homes.
~ A 5-year freeze on gas prices. PGW is a city-owned company with significant reserves. It’s time to use those to pass on a price freeze to Philadelphians struggling with the increasing cost of housing, including utilities.
~ A “fair share tax” on people’s stocks and bonds held by an individual, exempting 401ks, pensions and 529s. With the PA uniformity clause that demands a flat rate for all taxpayers, there is no way to create a “wealth tax” that asks more from the people who have more. But this :fair share tax” we are proposing (which existed before 2002) is a specific tax — .4% — on people’s reserves. In that way, it is about as close as we can get to a wealth tax (in part because more humble people live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have non-retirement investments). It is estimated to be able to raise annually $200 to 225 million additionally for the city, much of which we’d advocate to go to our schools.
Leaders from Old First and Arch Street United Methodist are advocating that we should include a policy objective that reaches to the needs of the unhoused. They and their plight are not politically powerful, but in an Unaffordability campaign it feels sensible, even strategic, to include some benefit for the people who feel the pain the most.
All this update is to explain that there is going to be a Kickoff Party for the “We Make Philly” campaign on July 25 at the Unitarian Society of Germantown (see the flyer below). Food, music and fun – and also a brief look into the campaign and our policy objectives We hope a bunch of Old Firsters will be in attendance.
