Georgist Conference in Pittsburgh, Part Three

To continue with the evening of Tuesday, July 23, Dan Sullivan said that in 2000, eight of the nine Pittsburgh City Councilmen wanted LVT back with better assessments. Unfortunately, Allegheny County didn’t provide the better assessments.

Jon Robison, a Pittsburgh area local, said that it may be possible to do something about assessments and land value taxation. Act 82 is expiring in 2020, and will have to be renewed. This relates to transit financing; an amended version could authorize or require financing by LVT, with up-to-date assessments, or something like that.

Then, following the Q&A after Dan Sullivan’s talk, Gib Halverson introduced Josie Faass, the new Executive Director of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Ms. Faass studied biology and public policy, and learned about Henry George.

She spoke about how she joined RSF to be active. It’s not enough to be right; you need to move people emotionally. She is getting all of Schalkenbach’s material on the Web, and is concerned with strategic planning to be effective.

Bad Blood

I have downloaded and begun reading Bad Blood, a book about Theranos, which is the current reading for the No Strings Attached book club at the Patent and Trademark Office. So far, so good.