A debate with no news

LEHMAN TWP. -Given the first chance to publicly confront the candidate suspected of organizing the challenges to their financial statements, James May and Tim Carroll gave Ed Sichler a pass.
They instead chose to blend into the blurry mishmash of nine candidates running on nearly identical platforms in the race for retiring state Rep. George Hasay’s 117th Legislative District seat.
At Thursday night’s debate on Penn State Wilkes-Barre’s campus, it was impossible to differentiate between the candidates by their positions on issues, a fact that many of them acknowledged.

They all agreed that property taxes have to be replaced by an increase in the sales or income tax. The legislature pulled the plug on voting on a bill to do just that Wednesday night.

GOP revolts; tax deal stalls

House Republicans refused to vote on a bill reforming Pennsylvania property taxes late Wednesday, sandbagging attempts by the Senate and Gov. Ed Rendell to cut taxes before the May 16 primary. Republicans, who control the House, said they decided to put off a vote on a Senate-passed bill that called for using gambling revenues to significantly reduce property taxes for low-income seniors. The bill would have provided modest cuts for other homeowners.

For 30 years they have been talking about reducing property taxes and nothing is done again. But they can pass a pay raise for themselves without even a debate.