We have a $95 million budget surplus, why are our SP schools, crime, and property and wage taxes embroiled in such crisis and stagnation?

Why are SP firehouses being closed in areas where communities feel these are critical? Why are people feeling that the drugs are driving them out of Snyder Ave.? Why does Street depend on deficits to fuel his policy, without being able to adapt to revenue coming in? Why can't Council cut the job-killing wage tax now?

From the DN today, embedded in article on city council and property taxes:

"In separate action on another contentious tax issue yesterday, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown introduced a proposal to cut the city's business-privilege tax, which she said was possible because of an unexpectedly large budget surplus of $95 million last year.

Last spring, Brown voted to sustain Street's veto of a long-term cut in the tax sponsored by Councilman Michael A. Nutter. At the time, the mayor cited a developing budget crunch as a reason to oppose the measure. Instead, there was a surplus.

Brown's bill differs from the measure Street vetoed in that it provides only a single year of guaranteed cuts, while the previous bill locked in a 12-year phase-out of the much-maligned business-privilege tax.

This time, "it's pay as you go," Brown said.

Nutter, who reintroduced his bill eliminating the tax and faces a hearing on it next week, said a fixed schedule of cuts would send a message to businesses.

"There's no guarantee that anything will happen beyond this year" under Brown's bill, he said.

Of the budget surplus cited by Brown, Nutter compared Street's use of ominous budget numbers ahead of last spring's tax debate to the Bush administration's use of now-discredited intelligence before the Iraq war.

"There was deception in the process purposely designed to undermine the efforts of many of us trying to provide leadership on the business-privilege tax issue," he said."

from www.phillynews.com