Poll: Trump and property taxes not popular

• Ed Mahon
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  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Ed Mahon / PA Post

The outside of North Star High School in Somerset County is seen on March 7, 2019. The school hosted a forum on legalizing recreational marijuana.

But voters OK with gun regs, Wolf’s Restore Pa.

Ed Mahon / PA Post

The outside of North Star High School in Somerset County is seen on March 7, 2019. The school hosted a forum on legalizing recreational marijuana.

• In a new poll, 61 percent of Pa. voters surveyed say they think Pennsylvania’s system of state and local taxes needs a fundamental overhaul. And 60 percent of respondents said local school property taxes, which politicians have tried to get rid of for many years, “should be reduced and replaced with state taxes, such as sales taxes on food and clothing, an increased state income tax, or a tax on natural gas extraction.”

• Meanwhile, when asked about President Trump, 38 percent of respondents said he has done a good enough job to deserve re-election, while 61 percent said it’s time for a change, as WITF’s Rachel McDevitt explains in this story that breaks down the poll from Franklin & Marshall College.

• Voters also don’t like that the gas taxes they pay at the pump and other transportation fees help cover the cost of state police instead of going exclusively toward roads, bridges and similar projects. In the survey, 67 percent said the state should find another source of funding for state police.

• So what do voters like? Restore PA, apparently. Nearly 70 percent of respondents said they favored Gov. Tom Wolf’s $4.5 billion infrastructure plan, to be funded through a severance tax on natural gas drilling. Under the plan, the state would borrow money for projects and pay the debt with the severance tax revenue over a long period — up to 20 years.

• The F&M poll also asked about the issue getting plenty of attention this week — firearm regulation. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they would like to see more restrictions on gun ownership.

Best of the rest

John Locher / Associated Press

From left, Melody Stout, Hannah Payan, Aaliyah Alba, Sherie Gramlich and Laura Barrios comfort each other during a vigil for victims of the shooting Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, in El Paso, Texas. A young gunman opened fire in an El Paso, Texas, shopping area during the busy back-to-school season, leaving multiple people dead and more than two dozen injured.

• After the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, President Trump blamed the perpetrators’ “mental illness and hatred.” The president’s statements and similar comments from other political leaders led WITF’s Brett Sholtis to talk to five mental health professionals in Pa. about mass shootings.The consensus? Don’t blame mental illness.

• State lawmakers created a new category of public school, WHYY’s Avi Wolfman-Arent reports. It’s called an innovation school, but the new designation appears to have been designed to benefit one charter school in Philadelphia.

• Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach convicted of child molestation in 2012, will be resentenced next month, Mark Scolforo reports for the Associated Press. Earlier this year, the state Superior Court denied Sandusky’s request for a new trial but ruled that mandatory minimums were improperly applied when a judge sentenced him to 30 to 60 years in prison.