On March 24, 2009, It’s Our City began an outreach campaign to every member of the Philadelphia City Council asking for them to share with us their thoughts about the budget. The questions are pretty straight-forward.

Do you largely support the mayor’s budget?

If you do not, what areas do you see as problematic?

What alternatives do you suggest that would still keep the budget in balance?

On April 29, Councilman William Greenlee wrote us to explain why he favors City Council’s current plan that calls for a five-year “temporary” sales tax hike in Philadelphia. This would raise the tax one-percent for a total of eight-percent.

This is obviously a very difficult budget since there is such a large deficit to deal with. I agree with the majority of Council that the best of the bad options is the raising of the sales tax for five years and to borrow to fill the gap for the first years. While borrowing and raising any tax is not appealing, we must do something. The sales tax, in my opinion, is much preferable to a 19% real estate tax increase. All people would pay the same sales tax in Philadelphia-residents, suburbanites, tourist, etc. The real estate tax hits homeowners who may be on limited income or unemployed. We hope to continue to work with the Nutter administration to work out the best solution to a very tough problem.

Sincerely,

William K. Greenlee

Councilman-At-Large