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dmcd0415 t1_jdzwlci wrote

Reply to comment by AbbeHuet in Gainey is set to unveil plans to challenge the tax-exempt status of more than a dozen properties in the city, including UPMC and a Propel School on the North Side by sugarandspice85

Is $36 million not enough? How much would make it worth it? Why do we all have to pay our fair share and insanely profitable international corporations don't?

Who would turn down a 5% raise?

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LimeMime565 t1_jdzwqgy wrote

Because that's the point of the american economic system.

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dmcd0415 t1_jdzx8n5 wrote

Oh, I know. I'm trying to get corporate defender u/abbehuet to come to that realization on his own.

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AbbeHuet t1_je00wog wrote

Since I apparently didn't write clearly: my disappointment is that there is so little money coming from all this. Not that we should forgive UPMC &co. And I should add that Gainey was fine leaving $115m on the sideway with OnePGH (link. So yeah, that $36m is a bit underwhelming in my view, especially since Gainey already promised a chunk to the police force.

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dmcd0415 t1_je05ntb wrote

Seems like a roundabout way of saying, "what about OnePGH" or "what about not defunding the police," or whataboutism. If you want me to point out he failed in those areas I'll gladly do so, and if you want me to vote for a more progressive candidate I'll gladly do so, but I'll also gladly say "fuck you upmc, pay your shit."

You have also left questions I've asked elsewhere unanswered to spout out this whataboutism

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AbbeHuet t1_je08gbq wrote

I don't enjoy interactions with insults, but I'll respond one last time.

If you care about the money, then saying "great, $36m" should instead be: "it sucks, we are still have $79m ($115-$36m) less than what we should to fund important stuff". It's not whataboutism: it's about the scale of the problem, and that small victories don't compensate (in my view) for much bigger screw-ups.

As for your other message (which I missed): I'm not afraid of anything? Why would I be afraid? As I said twice: it's great that they are getting this money (if they ever get it). But I would feel better if (a) they hadn't wasted three times that amount for seemingly no good reason, and (b) I was confident they would use it on something more else than more law enforcement.

In the end, I find this administration disappointing: it neither provides progressive policies (universal income was abandoned on day 1, the PD gets more money than ever, blaming local residents for lack of check on crime) nor more centrist ones (see the thread about downtown). At this stage, I find the weekly "CommUnity" tweets hard to swallow. But given the downvotes I'm receiving, I'm glad to see that others are more optimistic.

With this being said: this is one of these discussions which would be easier around a beer. I wouldn't be surprised if we agreed on more than what our exchange would suggest.

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dmcd0415 t1_je0fb96 wrote

It's whataboutism because your entire premise is based on you, for whatever reason, thinking I'm 100% supportive of Gainey and thinking his administration has no fuck ups, which is completely false. I would also love to take money away from police but we all know that's not going to happen so if we can make upmc some it's a win. You're speaking of this negatively because you would feel better if they did something else? Politics is a bus not a cab, man.

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AbbeHuet t1_je0h9n7 wrote

I'm genuinely confused: I have no thoughts about your ideas/beliefs. What makes you think I do? I reacted on a public forum about a piece of news, that's it. I even said I'm happy that people seem heartened by this update - and I mean it!

To borrow your metaphor: I'm a bus passenger who is a bit grumpy that we are taking a 30 minute detour but just informed by the driver than he made up 10 minutes via shortcut. I'm not telling the driver to drop me on my front porch.

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LostEnroute t1_je06i2x wrote

Was the $115m their contribution for just one year? I think that was multiple years worth.

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dazzleox t1_je0ybdr wrote

  • It was $115 million in pledges including money the non profits are already spending on charitable giving over 5 years. No new dollars actually hit the streets in seven-ish years of negotiations. UPMC would have done a significant $40 million up front on housing (with a possible preference for their own employees?), but then the combined contribution of every non profit would have been only about $15 million a year for five years, including loans (see below.) There was no commitment beyond the five years.
  • None of them money would have been democratically accountable to elected government/the citizens since they would have gone to the One Pittsburgh non profit organization who had an un-elected board of directors. So if Pitt said they wanted their contribution to go to a Mon Valley connector, they could have determined that since it wouldn't have gone through city budgeting/voting.
  • The $115 million also would have included low interest loans -- which is hardly a grant -- from PNC, Citizens, and FNB to community development organizations.

If Peduto got the proposal operating in time, maybe he would have been re-elected, but he didn't.

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LostEnroute t1_je1o51a wrote

Yeah, that's why OnePGH was garbage. Thank you for outlining.

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YIMBYYay t1_je0j2zd wrote

It's $36 million/year in total untaxed property, including parcels owned by the City of Pittsburgh. The tax value of the parcels on this list isn't anywhere close to that amount.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_je0qqyo wrote

Upmc doesn’t make a profit. The real issue is their large marketshare. They should be broken up into smaller pieces

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dazzleox t1_je0z3in wrote

There is a non profit exemption with hospital systems in antitrust law, so it would have to come back to the non profit issue anyway, unless congress would pass a law taking away the anti trust exemption.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_je11mlx wrote

Interesting. I’ll have to read up on that. It makes sense in rural areas that can’t support multiple hospitals but I think upmc owns too many hospitals in Allegheny county.

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AbbeHuet t1_jdzxuej wrote

$36m is nice, and I'm all for proper enforcement of tax law. But that's an amount comparable to usual fluctuations from year to year in revenues. It doesn't hurt, but this was a big theme during the elections last year and seen as key to Pittsburgh's progressive agenda. Surely they had other aspirations than fighting for what is roughly a rounding error in the annual budget?

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dmcd0415 t1_jdzydya wrote

The IRS would be coming at me or you for that rounding error. Why should corporations be held to a lower standard and why are you arguing to keep said standard as low as possible? It just makes no sense at all. What are you afraid of happening? What are the possible downsides for the city taking that $36 million from upmc?

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