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On the morning of Wednesday, July 24, 2019, after Open Mike, we had the first regular presentation: “History of the Georgist Movement in Pennsylvania,” by Joshua Vincent and Wyn Achenbaum. Mrs. Achenbaum is an amateur historian; Mr. Vincent is Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Economics, founded by Steven Cord as an offshoot of the Henry George Foundation of America.
Joshua Vincent said that the HG Foundation of America had been founded in Pittsburgh as an early Georgist organization in the 1920’s, go-go years when the single tax was fading. It spent $7200 to buy the Henry George birthplace in Philadelphia; it also started a cadre of speakers to talk about the single tax and Pittsburgh’s graded tax. William McGee, later mayor, was one of the founders, together with Congressmen and civic worthies, while the speaker’s bureau included people like Harry Gunnison Brown.
Mention of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “The Fifth Freedom,” 1942.
Percy Williams was an old-school gentleman, who preserved Pittsburgh’s graded tax against opposition. He did not succeed in expanding it, but he did preserve it. Dr. Steven Cord went with Mr. Williams to cities, trying to persuade them to go two-rate, but without success, and Cord didn’t think that Williams was doing a good job. Asked how they should do it, Cord didn’t have a good answer, but this led him to develop algebraic formulas so that people could plug in the numbers for their town’s building and land assessments, and get the numbers: if you want to reduce the tax on buildings by 5 mills, you need to increase the tax on land by 23.67 mills, or whatever the numbers were.
In the 1980s, Dr. Cord would make presentations to many city councils in Pennsylvania, and persuaded a number of them to go two-rate.
To be continued.
Joshua Vincent said that the HG Foundation of America had been founded in Pittsburgh as an early Georgist organization in the 1920’s, go-go years when the single tax was fading. It spent $7200 to buy the Henry George birthplace in Philadelphia; it also started a cadre of speakers to talk about the single tax and Pittsburgh’s graded tax. William McGee, later mayor, was one of the founders, together with Congressmen and civic worthies, while the speaker’s bureau included people like Harry Gunnison Brown.
Mention of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “The Fifth Freedom,” 1942.
Percy Williams was an old-school gentleman, who preserved Pittsburgh’s graded tax against opposition. He did not succeed in expanding it, but he did preserve it. Dr. Steven Cord went with Mr. Williams to cities, trying to persuade them to go two-rate, but without success, and Cord didn’t think that Williams was doing a good job. Asked how they should do it, Cord didn’t have a good answer, but this led him to develop algebraic formulas so that people could plug in the numbers for their town’s building and land assessments, and get the numbers: if you want to reduce the tax on buildings by 5 mills, you need to increase the tax on land by 23.67 mills, or whatever the numbers were.
In the 1980s, Dr. Cord would make presentations to many city councils in Pennsylvania, and persuaded a number of them to go two-rate.
To be continued.
