Government programs and agencies touch every aspect of our daily lives, consuming resources and limiting freedom on a scale that could not have been imagined by our Founding Fathers. One of every six US citizens now works in government at some level. Government salaries grow faster than those in the private sector, pensions and medical benefits are the best available, and tenure is virtually guaranteed after a brief probationary period of 90 days or even less.

Every one of these positions exists in response to some agency's "mandate" to deliver services, ranging from national defense to street sweeping. Without arguing the merits of any particular program, it is essential to hold government to a standard of accountablility and performance that ensures genuine value to the taxpayers who fund these programs.

Our Mission

The York County Taxpayers Council (YCTC) is a non-partisan organization formed to encourage citizens to demand that government at all levels be limited to those functions envisioned by the Founding Fathers, to make government more accountable, more efficient, and more transparent in delivering essential services so as to maximize the fruits of citizens' labor available for their own discretionary use.

Our Motto: Transparency, Accountability, and Value

The soul of our system of government is the ability of ordinary citizens to hold government officials at all levels accountable for their actions. Known as transparency, this essential democratic process takes many forms, but all allow concerned citizens to see openly into the activities of their government, rather than permitting these processes to be cloaked in secrecy.

One of YCTC's most important goals will be to increase transparency where it matters most to our members: York County government, the 70-odd municipal governments, and the 16 school districts that consume the lion's share of our real estate taxes.

YCTC will work to extend accountablilty to include a right of recall. We are told that the way to get rid of ineffective elected officials is to "vote them out of office." Unfortunately, we can't - here in Pennsylvania, we can only vote them in, and suffer the consequences of 2, 4, and even 6-year terms filled by officials who can't or won't fulfill their campaign promises. Accountability must include the means to remove ineffective or incompetent elected officials from office before they do more damage.

Finally, before we agree to pay taxes for any reason, there should be convincing evidence that a market-based alternative won't work, and we should be able to clearly measure the return on our investment to determine if we're getting a good value. Most of us would agree that the nation's defense should be funded through taxes of some sort. However, we might not be so sure that the public school system should funnel property taxes into private guitar lessons, acting lessons, video camera courses, and other boutique classes that have little or nothing to do with its mission or the public interest.