Newspaper: Rendell flood tax would soak taxpayers

You have to keep a good eye on Fast Eddie Rendell. He's always shuffling the deck, always moving the cups around so you never know where the ball is.

While he's talking about getting his $28.3 billion general fund budget past the Legislature, Rendell is always looking for new ways to raise taxes or pass on fees to Pennsylvania residents.

Rendell recently floated the idea of a 20-cent tax for every $100 in property insurance premiums to help pay for the state's flood-control projects.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which has never fallen for one of Rendell's tax schemes, reminds readers what the new tax is all about and says it's never a good idea to give Rendell more money to spend:

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.

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?

Read the full editorial here.