Great news on jobs front
On behalf of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, which is proudly headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia, I thank Gov. Tom Wolf for signing into law a new state budget that includes a computer data center tax incentive championed by Sens. John Yudichak and Scott Hutchinson as well as by state Rep. Donna Oberlander,
The sales and use tax exemption for the purchase of computer data center equipment, which was approved as part of the state’s Tax Code, will serve as an essential economic tax incentive to attract large-scale enterprise data center development to Pennsylvania.
Sen. Yudichak, as chair of the Senate Community, Economic & Recreational Development Committee, recently hosted committee hearings in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to highlight the need for tax and economic incentives to build out Pennsylvania’s technology infrastructure and create jobs. As part of those hearings, the committee learned that Pennsylvania was not successfully competing for technology jobs and failed to secure a single enterprise data center in the last decade.
A broad coalition of statewide building trade unions, tech industry leaders and a bi-partisan group of legislators quickly formed after the Senate committee hearings in support of building out Pennsylvania’s technology economy by passing a sales and use tax exemption for computer data center development.
As Sen. Yudichak stated at the first hearing, “The strength and resiliency of our technology infrastructure directly impacts our ability to compete for 21st-century technology jobs and to attract the world’s technology giants to Pennsylvania.”
The Data Center equipment tax exemption puts Pennsylvania on top of the list of states whose tax policies embrace the investment and jobs that come with large-scale data centers. It will help Pennsylvania compete with the dozens of other states that are attracting data center investments and jobs. For example, since 2017, the Commonwealth of Virginia – which offers a sales and use tax exemption for computer data centers – has created over 45,000 new jobs and leveraged $10 billion in private investment.
Sen. Yudichak said it best. “We were failing to attract data center developers to Pennsylvania because our tax policy was driving development to other states; those poor tax policy decisions ended with Gov. Wolf signing into law the sales and use tax exemption for computer data center development. The implementation of new tax policies that leverage private investment and encourage private sector job growth demonstrates that Pennsylvania is stepping up its economic game and competing for high-wage technology jobs.”
After being named chair of the committee earlier this year, Sen. Yudichak cited computer data centers and their economic development potential as a top priority for the committee.
Pennsylvania has the natural resources and the skilled workforce to compete with any state or nation in the world. Thanks to Gov. Wolf and Sen. Yudichak, Pennsylvania can now list another competitive advantage to our economic tool box – an innovative tax policy that will help set the stage for more private investment and the growth of high-wage jobs in the technology sector of our economy.
John J. Dougherty
Business Manager
Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council
Will Cosby sue?
Prosecutors every day make deals with suspects for the greater good and to seek justice in other cases.
Castor made a deal with Cosby for a civil case not to prosecute him criminally.
Steele should have honored that deal instead of trying to get elected based on his unethical behavior.
It is a shame for Cosby that the first trial judge didn’t understand and throw out the court case then.
When a lower court and others make mistakes in Pennsylvania we are fortunate enough to have a Supreme Court.
Will Cosby seek damages for time spent in jail, for the trial and his reputation as he should not have been tried in the first place?
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
COVID not dead yet
Think of the current COVID vaccine as a key and the virus as a lock, The current vaccine will disable the lock 95% of the time. If you switch the lock, the key won’t work. Switching the “lock” is what happens when the virus mutates to a new variety. The more virus particles shed, the more mutations that arise. It is inevitable that in time a mutation will arise that will be resistant to all current vaccines. People now are congregating in crowds, not wearing masks, traveling by planes, trains and automobiles to thousands of locations all around the world, many asymptomatic, creating “hot spots” and not wearing masks. Some are carriers. Sadly, some countries have been able to vaccinate only a small percentage of citizens. Some people refuse the vaccine that would reduce transmission of the virus. The new hyper-transmissible Delta variant has cases up 10% in a week, especially in areas with low vaccination rates. The world is hoping it will all go away by itself. It won’t.
Mel Flitter
Somerton
We need you know who
Thanks to Richard Donofry and Al Ulus. They tell it like it is.
Democrats were elected to protect American people but instead are protecting immigrants and others. They had the National Guard and barbed wire-fence around Washington to protect them and left the border wide open to let in criminals and degenerates. All this and much more to the burden of good American people who pay their salaries.
They should all be impeached and bring back you all know who.
Sonny Hudson
Morrell Park
