Unions, businesses support tax break

Associated Press

HARRISBURG

Gov. Tom Corbett on Wednesday demonstrated that he has deep support from labor unions and business-advocacy groups behind him as he presses state lawmakers to approve Pennsylvania’s largest taxpayer-paid package of financial incentives for what he portrays as the biggest industrial investment in the state in a generation.

He appeared at a Capitol news conference with several dozen union and business-group representatives as well as lawmakers from both parties in a show of support for his proposal for a $1.7 billion tax break designed to lure an integrated petrochemical industry to a state wracked by the flight of manufacturing jobs in recent decades.

Corbett faces lawmakers uneasy over the appearance of an industry giveaway and possibly a suspicious public at a time when his administration is pressing for a second-straight year of tax cuts for businesses and cuts in aid for education and services for the poor.

“For the general public, that might be hard to understand because ... they think we’re giving money to them,” Corbett told a news conference. “No, we’re not. What we’re saying is, ‘You build it. You provide all these jobs for all these people, and we’ll take a little bit less money from you so that we have more money for us.”’

Conservatives have expressed discomfort with the kind of tax break they have opposed in the past, and liberals are angry over this latest idea for a taxpayer subsidy after accusing Republicans of giving the booming natural-gas industry a pass on paying their fair share of taxes.

Asked whether he believes enough votes will emerge in the Legislature, Corbett, a pro-business Republican who is viewed as an ally of the natural-gas industry, singled out a handful of Democratic lawmakers who stood on stage with him.

“With some friends from the other side of the aisle here, I think the support will be there,” he replied.