You think its bad for PAT now, it's about to get A LOT WORSE! (calculated, health care)

[gg]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

A lot of ignorant people that just dont get it.....you can repeat it til your blue in the face..

And Gov DoNothing hopes it remains that way to get him 2nd term.

I think the description you are using for others, is better left for yourself. You don't pay the taxes here. You live in NYC. We pay that drink tax that allowed PAT to get the state funding because they had to raise the 15% match. Do you understand how simple that is?

Before you throw around your name calling of others, you may want to live here for a while and have an understanding of Pittsburgh and our wildly high taxes.

[ferraris]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

It provided the 15% match to qualify for the state to kick in a ton of money. Therefore, it did what it was intended to do. Get a pile of money to PAT from the tax and of course the state. The tax is on one industry and is totally unfair.

The authority currently receives about $184.5 million in operating assistance from the state. For the authority to qualify for that funding, the county must put up a 15 percent match.

Read more: Allegheny County drink tax wasn't meant for Port Authority - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Did you mean to link to the same article that I linked to?

Saying that the drink tax should have helped things doesn't make sense to me. It was most certainly a new tax, but it wasn't much of a revenue increase for Port Authority. It was just a numbers game that the county was playing in order to give Port Authority essentially the same amount as always. An increase of less than 1% doesn't even account for inflation, let alone the soaring costs of gas prices and health care.

The $1.9 million increase equals less than 1 percent of the agency's annual operating budget.

[Blackbeauty212]

This has been explained to h_curtis a zillion times a number of people here have given up trying reach a breakthrough at any sense of a logical debate with this person.....He refuses to believe plain &simple, black & white facts...He rather play ignorant because in his world his truth is all that matters.

[jimmyev]

Originally Posted by Goinback2011

The solution to the problem lies with the pensioners who have robbed the bus company and with the legislature that has the power to force PAT into bankruptcy to cut the pensions.

Run up your credit card then declare bankruptcy so you don't have to pay it? Swell idea. We should all do that! Why should the public that voted for politicians that nominated dudes to a board that racked up debt, debt, and more debt be held responsible for the results of their actions in the voting booth? Just default. It's what Greece is fixing to do...

[gg]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

This has been explained to h_curtis a zillion times a number of people here have given up trying reach a breakthrough at any sense of a logical debate with this person.....He refuses to believe plain &simple, black & white facts...He rather play ignorant because in his world his truth is all that matters.

1. Did a new tax happen for Allegheny County? Yes.
2. Did it do any good? No.

You can't argue those facts. We are in debt to our eyeballs in this state. Schools are crumbling, debts keep rising. Do you expect things to continue on the same path? You better get used to the idea of tightening belts. It IS going to happen. People are out of work, housing market may not recover in our lifetime and more. Not good times. Grasp it.

[BrianTH]

Did the drink tax substantially increase the County's contribution to PAT? No.

So does the drink tax have anything to do with PAT's budget balance? No.

So does it make sense to keep asking why the drink tax didn't improve PAT's budget balance? No.

[Goinback2011]

Run up your credit card then declare bankruptcy so you don't have to pay it? Swell idea. We should all do that! Why should the public that voted for politicians that nominated dudes to a board that racked up debt, debt, and more debt be held responsible for the results of their actions in the voting booth? Just default. It's what Greece is fixing to do...

It's the PAT pensioners who ran up the credit card and continue to run it up each year. And they want someone else (taxpayers) to pay it at higher and higher rates. Bankruptcy is the procedure used in America to deal with an unpayable debt. It's just not yet authorized for PAT.

Think of it this way: if the magical Transportation Fund was suddenly filled to the brim with enough money to pay this year's costs, would that solve the problem for NEXT year? Would even the same amount of money given this year cover next years extortion by the pensioners? No - that amount of money would need to increase next year and every year.

If the legislature THIS YEAR forced PAT into bankruptcy to reduce the pensions, would that solve the problem next year and every year thereafter? Why yes, it would.

[BrianTH]

Although I agree it would be a good idea to let PAT trim its legacy costs, either through bankruptcy or another mechanism, it is a fair point that prior cohorts of riders and taxpayers benefited themselves by trading higher retirement benefits for lower salaries, since the latter would have required immediate payment.

So in an ideal world, you would both trim the legacy costs and also force those prior cohorts of riders and taxpayers to kick in more funding. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do that, because many of those folks have effectively fled the jurisdiction (including by passing away), or are intermingled with innocent cohorts such that they can't be exclusively targeted.

By the way, I don't want to have the same argument for the millionth time, so I will just briefly state that the goal of cutting PAT's legacy costs should be to allow PAT to provide more service for the same funding, rather than allowing the state to get away with screwing Allegheny County on transportation funding. So cutting PAT's legacy costs should not be a substitute for insisting the state fairly fund PAT, but instead we should be lobbying for both to occur.

[UKyank]

I don't recall the time when PAT workers were agreeing to take low salaries in return for higher pensions.

Either way, without addressing the ever increasing legacy costs in a meaningful way & just funding PATs request is merely kicking the funding black hole can down the road again until this same conversation comes up again next year when the legacy costs eat up yet another increased percentage of its budget.
I also don't think youll find any meaningful support to find things by increasing any fees or taxes on people as the transportation commission suggested.

[stburr91]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

By the way, I don't want to have the same argument for the millionth time, so I will just briefly state that the goal of cutting PAT's legacy costs should be to allow PAT to provide more service for the same funding, rather than allowing the state to get away with screwing Allegheny County on transportation funding. So cutting PAT's legacy costs should not be a substitute for insisting the state fairly fund PAT, but instead we should be lobbying for both to occur.

I completely agree, we should lobby for both. The problem is there isn't a lot of support for doing what it would take for PAT to trim it's legacy costs. There are too many union members in PA collecting nice pensions, and would be worried their's will be next, so they will fight any effort to allow legacy costs to be cut.