When government needs more money, it has a few options.

There are fees: a cost for a driver’s license or a hunting license or a copy of your birth certificate.

There are fines, although this should never really be looked at as a revenue source. It’s more about enforcing the rules.

There are other things like lotteries or sale of assets or the funds that come from a higher level of government.

But the biggest source is taxes. In the state’s 2024-25 general fund budget of $44.7 billion, the majority of funds come from a web of various taxes. Pennsylvania might net $360 million from gambling, but it pulls in $12.6 billion from income withholding alone.

The one larger piece of the pie is non-motor sales tax — the 6% paid to the state for anything you buy that isn’t a vehicle.

Well, almost. Pennsylvania has certain carve-outs in its sales tax. You don’t pay it on most grocery foods. For soda, hot food, some prepared items, you pay a tax. For milk, veggies, bread and others, you don’t.

Sometimes it makes sense. If you’re buying a case of root beer, it’s not exactly a necessity. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. A hot rotisserie chicken is taxed; a cold one isn’t. Then there is candy. It’s hard to see that as being anything other than political when the state capital is 15 miles from the Hershey chocolate factory. New York, New Jersey and Maryland all tax candy.

There are other things that aren’t taxed too. Clothing. Newspapers. Hospital bills. There are reasons. Clothes are needed. Newspapers serve the public. Hospital bills are already crippling.

But Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, has expressed a receptiveness to more taxes that is rare for the GOP. With the budget still not passed and the deadline more than a week in the rear view mirror, there are questions about changing what is exempt, according to Spotlight PA.

“I think it behooves us to at least take a look at some of those exemptions and figure out whether or not those are really necessary,” Pittman said.

Asking questions and exploring possibilities is where solutions start. And there are a lot of categories on the table outside of bread and winter coats. Accounting services, legal bills, architectural design, recreation.

But there is also always a cost. Raise a dollar one way and you lose one — or more — in the balance. For example, Pennsylvania malls and outlet centers see a brisk business in people who cross the state line to buy school clothes every year. That’s revenue that could be lost if buying sneakers in Grove City suddenly costs as much as it does in Ohio.

If this is something to think about, it doesn’t seem appropriate to do it under the gun of a budget battle. It’s a complex issue and a longer conversation that shouldn’t be rushed because state leaders are looking for every dime they can find in the capital couch cushions.

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