Cultural leaders blast planned tix tax
From the Philadelphia Daily News
By Kitty Caparella
Culture czarina Peggy Amsterdam may as well have been rallying compatriots to battle on the ramparts in “Les Miserables.”
Last night, the feisty Amsterdam urged mavens of the region’s arts and culture community to oppose the state’s 6 percent sales tax on tickets to concerts, live theater, performing arts, zoos and museums.
“This is the fight for our lives,” said Amsterdam, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, which recently unveiled a campaign seeking to double audiences to arts and cultural events by 2020.
“Why are the arts singled out, and movies and sports exempt?” she asked. Revenues from the proposed tax would amount to “only a paltry one-third of one percent of the budget.”
To Gov. Rendell, she asked one question: “What were you thinking?”
The crowd responded with thunderous applause at the alliance’s annual meeting at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Hear this!” Amsterdam vowed to politicians in Harrisburg. “We will not sit quietly by, and accept this, will we?”
“No!” roared the audience, representing 390 arts and cultural organizations in the alliance.
“So, Gov. Rendell and legislative leaders: In the next few days, you will hear from us,” Amsterdam vowed. “We will clog your fax machines. We will call and visit you.”
And she told members of the alliance that they had only 10 days “to make a difference before this [arts tax] becomes law.”
“Call your legislators and oppose the expansion of the sales tax and get your board members to complain,” she added. She didn’t rule out hiring buses for advocates to lobby legislators.
Amsterdam accused Rendell and the arts-tax proponents – Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, and Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson – of trying to solve the budget crisis “on the backs of the most vulnerable while pushing cultural organizations to the brink.
“This is a repressive tax that will affect the poorest communities,” citing seniors, single parents, families and students, she said. “These are the people who will be forced to pay the new tax.
“This will tax people out of our cultural institutions,” she added.
Mayor Nutter, who arrived after the rally, said the “arts, culture and creative expression is the heart and soul of Philadelphia.”
The arts economy generates $1.2 billion in the five-county area and provides 20,000 jobs, but it has been hit hard by the recession with layoffs and shortened programs, he said.
So the alliance and the city have prepared a $250,000 proposal to the feds seeking to save jobs in 11 arts organizations, he added.
