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1. Federal tax lien deepens questions over Delco council president’s unpaid taxes

By Todd Shepherd

The federal government last year placed a lien on Delaware County Council President Richard Womack (D) for $141,540 in unpaid taxes, according to court documents.

This new information follows last week’s revelation Womack owed about $91,000 in back taxes on two properties, although that total was split among school districts, municipalities, as well as the county. Across all levels of government, this means that Womack owes more than $230,000 in outstanding taxes.

Why It Matters. Womack’s tax woes have been unearthed just months after the county approved a nineteen percent tax increase for calendar year 2026. The year before that, the county approved a 24 percent increase, although Womack was the lone ‘no’ vote on council at the time. And still one year before that, the county increased taxes five percent.

Although by simple addition the tax increases total 48 percent, the net effect is more cumulative. Because each tax increase is applied to a base that was also increased the year before, a compounding effect comes into play. For a Delaware County citizen, the county portion of their real estate taxes are now more than fifty percent higher than before the three increases were approved.

According to the court document, Womack had unpaid taxes of $45,088 for calendar year 2021, and $96,451 for 2022. The lien was recorded last July, and the court document lists the same address already in the public domain identified as belonging to Womack.

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2. Fixing Pennsylvania’s local government patchwork starts with fixing the law

By Seth Higgins

The new year in Pennsylvania brought with it a rarity in local government: the consolidation of two municipalities. This happened when DuBois and Sandy Township — both located in rural Clearfield County — completed a consolidation effort this month that was approved by voters in 2021.

The case for municipal mergers and consolidations stems from the fact that Pennsylvania has one of the densest networks of local government in the country. To get a sense of this, Pennsylvania has 2,555 townships, boroughs, and cities. This is before you add on the dozens of counties, hundreds of school districts, and thousands of municipal authorities.

Why It Matters. Many municipalities, particularly low population ones, lack the resources and people to effectively run a government. Pennsylvania’s current system requires tens of thousands of locally elected or appointed officials. These positions are frequently vacant.

To highlight this point, there are nearly 800 municipalities with populations fewer than 1,000 and nearly 60 percent of all municipalities in Pennsylvania have a population fewer than 2,500. 

Economic development and infrastructure projects become more costly and time-consuming when they must coordinate across multiple jurisdictions, often with competing priorities and different rules and permitting processes. Many federal grants also require local matching funds, which small municipalities frequently lack. This means their residents are unable to access federal dollars that would otherwise flow to their communities. At the same time, clustered units of government often duplicate administrative functions and services across small geographic areas, driving up per-capita costs without delivering better outcomes.

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3. Lightning Round

4. What we're reading

The usually obscure and sparsely populated isle of Greenland is having its turn in the spotlight this year — very much against its will. There is plenty to read on the topic. 

At the Free Press, Rod Dreher writes that when it comes to Greenland, “Trump seems to have lost his mind.” At National Review, Jim Geraghty questions the wisdom of tearing apart NATO “for a trinket,” while Charlie Cooke questions who we can afford to buy anything given the massive debt we already owe. At Unherd, Wolfgang Munchau thinks Trump will eventually win the diplomatic challenge, while Mary Harrington writes that it would come at the cost of alienating his few remaining friends on the continent. 

Meanwhile, Britain is pathetically trying to get rid of its Indian Ocean outpost at Diego Garcia — maybe Trump should buy that instead?