Marko_Ramius1

Marko_Ramius1 t1_je6xt28 wrote

Reply to comment by QuidProJoe2020 in The Local Tax Burden on Philadelphia Households: Homeowners generally pay less by PhillyAccount

I agree with most of this, except for your proposal to make the wage tax progressive. While it's good the city incentivizes homeownership, making the wage tax progressive would unfortunately have the effect of disincentivizing wealthy people from living in the city, similar to how businesses concentrate in the burbs. By nature the wage tax is highly volatile because people can just get up and leave whenever they want, versus property taxes which are tied to land. The city really needs to do all they can to reduce/get rid of the wage tax if they want to ever attract businesses en masse to the city

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j9kcxe2 wrote

Reply to comment by 99centstalepretzel in Mayoral candidate Helen Gym and ex-Mayor Michael Nutter clashed during a live event: ‘We are just in total disagreement’ by thefirststoryteller

>And anybody who takes the Mayor's seat needs to be confronted with tough questions, instead of running on ✨vibes✨

I agree with this, especially since the current guy has done nothing in his tenure to improve city services. IMO that makes it even more important in this election to have someone who's a good at dealing with the nuts and bolts of running government efficiently, since that's 95% of the mayor's job. Another candidate who's asleep at the wheel and only cares about platitudes/abstract policies is just gonna lead to more of the same as it has been under Kenney.

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j9kbpkj wrote

Reply to comment by mexheavymetal in Mayoral candidate Helen Gym and ex-Mayor Michael Nutter clashed during a live event: ‘We are just in total disagreement’ by thefirststoryteller

I've said this before, but I'm somewhat expecting that Gym will end up winning due to the primary laws. All she needs is 1 vote more than the second place runner up in a field of 9 (?) people running, with plenty of candidates overlapping in their natural constituencies i.e Rhynhart and Domb get the establishment white Dems, Derek Green and Cherelle Parker split the black vote etc. And with reclaim behind her, that may be enough because even though they're far-left loons they show up to vote for their people

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j6xbtpi wrote

Reply to comment by TreeMac12 in [Inquirer] The Philly mayor’s race is a money race, from thousands of small donations to a $5 million check by oliver_babish

That's the case with pretty much every political race these days. IIRC the Senate race in PA last year was the highest-spending race in the country, and hundreds of millions came from outside the state. The best local Philly example is Larry Krasner getting $1.5M from George Soros when he first ran for DA. But I do agree with you that if there's to be a limit on campaign spending, it should be that non-residents spending money on local races gets severely limited (i.e. people from Florida don't spend money on PA races, and vice versa)

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j6o7ygj wrote

Reply to comment by Brraaap in This is why you don't park like an asshole. As if the sanitation workers don't have enough to deal with. They tried for 20 minutes and gave up. Now this entire block has trash sitting here until next time. by Adventurous_Key3647

This is the one thing I never understood about the PPA. I get they're a state-run organization, but they only have jurisdiction over like half of the city? I know people can sign up blocks to be enforced by the PPA, but it just makes 0 sense

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j6o2wzl wrote

Reply to comment by Little_Noodles in Gym bashes Union League, goes to cocktail party there next week by MagnusUnda

If she's going to take a stand like that, then she should probably know as a politician how to work around issues like that so as to prevent that in the future, instead of being such an absolutist.

I could care less about the politics of the Union League/DeSantis, but considering the past honorees of that award he got include George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, I'm shocked DeSantis is somehow the straw that broke the camels back here re the Union League's right-leaning political views being out of sync with Philadelphia at large

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j6nzz2z wrote

Reply to comment by Little_Noodles in Gym bashes Union League, goes to cocktail party there next week by MagnusUnda

>Declaring that politicians can’t ever go inside the building unless they’ve never criticized the organization basically just prevents politicians from making the criticism, because going into that building to do facetime with groups like this is part of their job.

If you're a politician then you're already a cheat and a liar by virtue of your profession. But if you make a stand about something you claim to believe in, then completely ignore it in less than a week, then that just shows you're even more an empty suit then the rest of them. You have to anticipate there will be consequences to taking a stand like that, i.e missing out on events such as this.

There will for sure plenty of other opportunities to gladhand the old boy/Philly establishment network, and I highly doubt Gym was the only candidate there last night. She was just the only one dumb enough to forcefully denounce the Union League then show up the next week.

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j6nwz06 wrote

Reply to comment by Little_Noodles in Gym bashes Union League, goes to cocktail party there next week by MagnusUnda

Plenty of companies/businesses host events there. My current job used to host a big local industry conference there pre Covid, and my former job had our Christmas dinner there once. If you're a member then you can reserve the space for your firm/organization/whatever. Stands to reason at least one person who's a higher up in the contractors association is a member

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j5khuij wrote

Reply to What are the chances that development pressure from Pennsport, Passyunk, and Lower Moyamensing continues to the middle blocks? by NonIdentifiableUser

I think it will eventually. But the big difference versus neighborhoods like fishtown, brewerytown, point breeze etc is that there's not a lot of large vacant lots, so it's pretty dependent on people flipping homes/smaller apartment buildings. There's unfortunately not many places where you can put those massive projects that you see in those aforementioned neighborhoods

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Marko_Ramius1 t1_j2smvgq wrote

Reply to comment by familyofgeniuses in Chat Around and Find Out: Tuesday Casual Chat Thread by AutoModerator

I would also add that after 8 years of having a mayor who did exactly that (didn't run the city but just mouthed off platitudes) Nutter would be a welcome remedy. Her husband being a major lawyer at Amerisource is also a little sketchy IMO, especially after the news last week they're being sued by the DOJ over the opioid crisis, which is a major issue in Philly (to put it lightly).

Edit: and to your point about taxes, where did Gym's husbands company recently build their state of the art HQ: Conshohocken because they don't wanna be in the city due to its idiotic tax policy

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