On Monday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill 1100.
It doesn’t sound that important when you list it like that. Most legislation starts out like that, numbered like a tag to pick up dry cleaning. Try to grasp what passes as a title and it gets worse — an almost incomprehensible jumble of words that make sense individually but read like Scrabble tiles dumped in a heap.
You are on page 3 of the document before you realize what it’s about: property tax and rent rebates for senior citizens. In addition to increasing the amount that could be received in a rebate — the maximum moving from $650 to $1,000 — there is also an adjustment in the household income limit.
It’s about time.
The bill doesn’t just make that a one-time change. It connects the adjustment to the Consumer Price Index. That means when the cost of living goes up, the state understands seniors who depend on the rebates need more money to live and shouldn’t be penalized because that happens.
Without this, an increase in Social Security checks or other pension disbursements based on cost of living could move someone out of the rigid boundaries of qualification for the rebate. The qualifying numbers for property tax rebates haven’t budged in 16 years. For renters, it’s more than 35 years.
That is ludicrous, and most of the House agreed. The bill had 92 cosponsors. It passed by an almost impossible margin in the very politically and narrowly divided Legislature: 194 yea votes and just nine nays.
Those few opposed included Rep. Eric Davanzo, R-Smithton; Rep. Natalie Mihalek, R-Peters; and Rep. Eric Nelson, R-Hempfield.
The bill now goes to the Senate. Those lawmakers should pass it with the same overwhelming support.
That’s never a guarantee. However, if they take issue with this vulnerable population that makes up so many of Pennsylvania’s residents and taxpayers and voters, then the very next bill to be introduced should be one to repeal something else tied to the Consumer Price Index.
That is the automatic pay increases for legislators and other officials year after year. In 2023, the average lawmaker saw a $7,400 (7.8%) increase in annual pay thanks to a 1995 law. The year before, it was a 5.6% increase.
It is obscene to let some of the poorest seniors be dropped from a benefit that makes a substantial difference in their lives for the crime of becoming not quite poor enough because of the federal government acknowledging the cost of living has changed.
It is even worse for people who get an automatic raise on the same grounds to vote against fixing the problem.
The House did its part. Your turn, senators.
