08/31/2025
Opinion: Senate Republicans are betraying small businesses with a proposal for a crushing skills-game tax
August 29, 2025
By Cliff Maloney
A faction of Pennsylvania’s Senate Republicans, led by Chris Gebhard, just spit in the face of every small business owner, veteran, and liberty lover in the Commonwealth.
Their proposed 35% tax on skill games, the legal revenue streams for thousands of small businesses, American Legions, VFWs, and volunteer fire departments, is a gut punch to each and every one of them. Worse, it’s a bailout for SEPTA, Philadelphia’s mismanaged mass transit boondoggle. This isn’t just bad policy, it’s economic su***de.
As CEO of Citizens Alliance and a Delco, PA native, I’ve sworn to back candidates who uphold our pledge: vote for economic freedom and against any net tax hikes. This is a basic, fundamental Republican stance you don’t think could be an issue for self-proclaimed Republicans to stand by, but Gebhard proves that’s obviously not true.
Gebhard’s bill breaks that promise, slapping a crushing 35% tax, plus an uncapped fee set by the bloated Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, on small businesses and fraternal clubs already drowning in sales, income, property, and local taxes. This would make skill games the most heavily regulated product in Pennsylvania, turning mom-and-pop shops and veteran posts into targets for fines and bureaucratic harassment.
Only in Harrisburg’s swamp would this pass for “smart.”
These businesses and clubs aren’t just surviving, they’re thriving because of skill games, which have pumped revenue into communities for a decade.
Gebhard wants to siphon that cash to prop up SEPTA, a black hole of mismanagement that’s been fleecing taxpayers for years. Philadelphia’s elites get a bailout while small-town bars, VFWs, and fire departments get crushed.
That’s not Republican values. It’s selfish, crony nonsense. Some argue casinos pay high taxes, so skill games should too. Wrong.
Taxes like those siphon money from the economy and put them right into the hands of the state government, never the hands of the people who actually make the economy move.
Let private businesses keep their money to reinvest instead of feeding Harrisburg’s appetite. Skill games are legal, already taxed, and vital to small businesses struggling under Pennsylvania’s high tax rates. Why pile on more?
Gebhard’s bill would kick in 90 days after passage, just as candidates launch re-election petitions.
To those backing this who hope their constituents aren’t paying attention, good luck explaining to voters why you tanked their local diner or Legion post right before the primaries.
Republicans like Gebhard are betraying the working-class voters they ran on serving the interests of. Their voters wanted lower taxes and to keep more of the money they’ve earned, not Harrisburg’s greedy hand in their pockets.
Republicans are supposed to be the party of deregulation, free markets, and less government. It’s about time we act like it.
Cliff Maloney is the CEO of Citizens Alliance and Founder of the PA CHASE.
