You Get What You Vote For (And You Pay For It Too)
Those Tax Hikin' Democratic Governors
By Dan McLaughlin Posted in Democratic Governors | State Politics — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The 2006 elections brought us eight new Democratic governors, plus the re-election of 11 Democratic incumbents. Nobody should be surprised, however, to see that several of those governors are reaching for Democrats' favorite cure for all ills: higher taxes. Let's take a look at some of the Democratic governors who think taxes just aren't high enough, as well as a few who have learned their lesson (and one Republican who hasn't):
Read on - there's much, much more...
The Main Offenders:
Illinois: Rod Blagojevich
Following his re-election, Gov. Blagojevich proposed the largest tax increase in Illinois history, "a tax on businesses at every step in providing services or products," carrying an estimated $7.6 billion price tag and supporting a plan "to boost spending on health insurance, schools and pensions," a plan that has drawn stiff bipartisan opposition in the state House and even led Chicago's Democratic Mayor to blast Blagojevich for jacking up taxes and using anti-business rhetoric.
Michigan: Jennifer Granholm
Michigan voters knew, with the state's economy badly lagging behind the nation as a whole, that they were voting for more of the same by re-electing Gov. Granholm. But apparently deciding that the business climate wasn't bad enough, she is proposing $1.5 billion in new taxes, and threatening cuts to essential services to get the state legislature to play along. "Granholm favors a 2-cent service tax that would tax everything from haircuts to car washes. An across-the-board sales tax increase is also an option," and she insists that a hike in income taxes is the only other alternative. Michigan retailers are crying foul.
Pennsylvania: Ed Rendell
Affable big-city machine politicians like Rendell, handily re-elected after a challenge by Lynn Swann, become a lot less likeable once the tab comes due. Rendell proposed upping the sales tax from 6 to 7 percent, which would put Pennsylvania second only to California in sales taxes, and continue a sharp upward trend in the state's tax burden. Two thirds of the hike was earmarked for new spending, with a third offsetting planned property tax cuts:
About 40 percent of the $1.246 billion in new revenue would go toward expanding the $1 billion a year in property-tax reductions that slot-machine gambling is eventually expected to generate; the rest would be used to finance other state programs.
The increase would not expand the sales tax to items other than those currently taxed.
A failure to get a sales tax increase approved by the Legislature would likely spell doom for many of the new programs, or program increases, in Rendell's proposed budget, which includes significant increases in welfare spending and in education.
That proposal looks dead now due to opposition in the legislature, though legislators are split on whether to support other tax increases or to support the hike if the whole thing is earmarked for property tax cuts. Rendell had also proposed other tax increases:
Rendell's $27.3 billion budget includes proposals for . . . increasing waste-disposal fees from $6.25 per ton to $9 per ton to help the state's hazardous site cleanup fund and establishing a new electricity usage tax of $0.0005 on kilowatts of energy used per hour to help fund an energy independence program. It also proposes taxing oil companies 6.17 percent on their total profits and taxing businesses that do not provide health insurance to their employees 3 percent of their annual payroll to fund state health care.
All of this is intended to pay for "a 3.6 percent or $948-million increase in spending growth."
Colorado: Bill Ritter
While he stumbled in recent years, Colorado's former GOP Governor Bill Owens was rightly lionized for the hard line on taxes and spending that had earned him a National Review cover calling him "America's Best Governor". Central to that effort was the 1992 Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), which restricts the ability of Colorado state government to raise taxes.
So of course, Owens' Democratic successor, Bill Ritter, is looking for ways around TABOR, setting up a possible constitutional crisis in Colorado. The proposal Ritter supports - and which passed the state Senate on a largely party-line vote - would strip away built-in protections against property tax hikes driven by increased property values:
Under current law, mill levies, which are used to calculate property taxes, ratchet down as property values rise, because of an interaction between the 1994 School Finance Act and various constitutional provisions, including TABOR.
By freezing mill levies, Senate Bill 199 would prevent the state budget from shouldering more of local education costs every year when property-tax receipts would either level out or decrease under the ratchet-effect.
Preventing a decline in mill levies, however, could mean a significant increase in property taxes for Mesa County residents.
The median value for a single-family home in Mesa County rose 29.8 percent, from $151,000 two years ago to $196,000 this year, according to figures released Tuesday by the Mesa County Assessor’s office.
Call it what you will, but a bill to cause taxes to go up 29.8% when they otherwise would not certainly sounds like a tax hike to me. And it will to Colorado homeowners, too.
Massachusetts: Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick reclaimed the "Taxachusetts" governors' mansion for the Democrats for the first time since Michael Dukakis, and what's on his menu? First, closing "loopholes" to increase business taxes by some $500 million, though he is proposing a commission to nail down the specifics:
The Patrick administration proposes seven changes to corporate tax codes that would:
-Generate about $136 million in revenue by curbing the business practice of shifting income to out-of-state subsidiaries to avoid Massachusetts taxes.
-Yield $99 million in new revenues by requiring businesses to ‘‘check the (same) box’’ or conform their corporate identities between state and federal tax returns.
-Require that Internet resellers pay hotel and motel room occupancy taxes, producing an estimated $5.6 million for the state and $4 million for municipalities.
-Ensure that businesses pay the full sales tax on leased equipment, possibly generating about $28 million.
-Tax insurance companies on non-insurance revenue as well as premiums - currently, an insurance company is only taxed on premiums and not subject to tax on non-insurance revenue - for an estimated $14 million.
-Require recipients of the state’s refundable earned income tax credit to live or work in Massachusetts, generating an estimated $2 million.
-Prevent companies from avoiding the real estate transfer tax when property is sold by placing the real estate in a subsidiary business entity and selling the interest in that entity rather than the underlying real estate, raising an estimated $12 million.
Business leaders say the tax changes would put them at a competitive disadvantage. They point to the fact that the state’s annual corporate taxes have risen by more than $800 million in the past four years, largely because of previous rounds of corporate tax changes.
Patrick's administration "explains that these are not anti-business but a matter of fairness and shared responsibility." He also wants to open up new avenues of local taxation (a plan opposed by the state Senate's leading Republican):
Patrick’s plan would allow communities to raise meals taxes from 5 percent to up to 7 percent; lodging taxes could be raised from 9.7 percent and 12.45 percent (for Boston, Cambridge and Springfield) to 10.7 percent and 13.5 percent.
Patrick has proposed a separate idea allowing communities to tax telecom companies’ properties.
Maine: John Baldacci
Baldacci, re-elected in 2006, wants to raise $131 million with a $1-a-pack hike in the cigarette tax (don't you love when Democrats propose regressive taxes on a product people are addicted to? At least it's a concession that this is one activity that won't go away if you tax it, though it can be evaded if you can drive to another state.) Some fellow Democrats disagree and think the alcohol tax should be raised instead, or want to "put more of the tax burden on visitors to the state." Republicans have been opposing any new taxes, while Democrats play chicken with business taxes:
Sen. Karl Turner, R-Cumberland, a member of the Appropriations Committee, said Republicans on the panel have worked out a list of proposed cuts to bring the budget into balance without raising taxes.
"That said, we need Democratic votes to pass a budget as much as they need Republican votes," he said.
Democrats also made it clear they realize the budget process will be a series of trade-offs, and they all but called a proposal to reduce the Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement program by 5 percent a year a bargaining chip in the coming negotiations. Maine Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors was upset that the program might be used in the budget process as a bargaining chip.
"This creates that same problem we have had year after year with predictability and sustainability," he said. "I am deeply concerned about it."
Wisconsin: Jim Doyle
The purplest state in the nation in the 2004 election re-elected Democrat Jim Doyle last year, campaigning on a platform of (among other things) not raising taxes, while the state legislature is split. Now, the bill is coming due, with perhaps as much as $1.75 billion in new taxes. As one state Republican explained:
Suder got down to the brass tacks of Doyle’s proposal, $7.6 billion in new spending and borrowing over the biennial period.
In a handout, Suder showed if the state maintained its current spending levels and proposed revenue collections for 2007-09, there would only be a $320 million shortfall to be made up by tax increases or spending cuts.
If Doyle’s budget were approved as is, the typical Wisconsin family of four would see an increase in fees, property and other taxes and bonded state debt of $5,613.
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[The budget includes] a tax on small business owners who file quarterly business forms by mail . . . and taxes on music downloads, e-mail greeting cards and soda purchases.
Republicans have opposed those new taxes. Doyle wants a staggering $1.25 per pack increase in the cigarette tax. And he proposes a 2.5% gasoline tax that is bound to be passed on to consumers one way or another:
A tax on oil companies proposed by Gov. Jim Doyle could be passed through to consumers at the gas pump, according to an analysis by state tax officials cited in a conservative group's new report.
Doyle has proposed taxing oil companies an estimated $272 million over two years and pledged he'll keep the costs from being passed on to Wisconsin consumers by fining or even jailing oil company executives who try to do so.
Oregon: Ted Kulongoski
Oregon has a $1 billion budget surplus, so what does the state's newly re-elected Democrat governor, Ted Kulongoski, want to do? Raise what some estimate as up to $1.6 billion in new taxes. To pay for a vast new healthcare spending plan, he proposed an 84.5 cent hike in, yes, the cigarette tax. But while Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, tax increases require more votes than the Democrats have, and so the cigarette tax hike bit the dust when only one Republican joined all 31 Democrats in the state House in supporting it.
New Hampshire: John Lynch
New Hampshirites may have a longstanding reputation for their flinty opposition to taxes and spending, but with Democrats controlling the legislature for the first time in over 80 years, Democratic Gov. John Lynch, re-elected in 2006, apparently doesn't share that view. Lynch proposed what some called an increase of 15-17% in state spending, and the state House passed a budget that raised spending 11% (compared to a Lynch proposal decribed as a 9% hike), plus tax hikes:
[L]awmakers approved two new tax increases: a 45-cent increase in the cigarette tax, to $1.25 a pack, and a 4 percent increase in the real estate transfer tax, raising the rate for home buyers and sellers from $7.50 to $7.80 each per $1,000 of home value. The House also voted to raise the state portion of the vehicle registration fee by $6.
On the tax side, "Lynch had proposed a 28-cent cigarette tax hike and a larger fee hike on registering large trucks." Republicans have denounced the tax hikes, and only two Republicans voted for the new budget.
Tennessee: Phil Bredesen
Gov. Bredesen rightly won plaudits in his first term for his centrism (he has resisted calls for a state income tax), and times are rich in Tennessee; the governor admitted in a recent address to the General Assembly that "I have never had a year with as much new money as we have before us now." Yet, he is standing by his request to triple the cigarette tax to pay for education spending, a 40-cent-a-pack hike that has drawn stiff opposition from Republicans who say taxes should not need to be increased in good economic times.
The Mixed Bags:
Iowa: Chet Culver
Iowa Democrats in the legislature proposed 20% increases to the state sales and use taxes. Iowa's new Democratic governor, to his credit, opposed the plan, which bit the dust, but ended up signing a $127 million increase in cigarette taxes to pay for new spending:
[One Iowa Republican] said a record wage and benefits increase of $1.8 million to state employees was too much, while Seymour criticized that 625 new state jobs will be created in the year beginning July 1. . . .
The senators slammed the growth in the state budget of 10 percent in one year, rising to more than $5.8 billion. Further, there are built-in spending increases of $557 million for next year and $656 million for 2009, they noted, saying that kind of growth is not sustainable.
New Mexico: Bill Richardson
There are any number of reasons to be alarmed by the thought of Bill Richardson as the Commander-in-Chief, but give the man his due: on taxes, he's as good as a Democrat with national aspirations is likely to get, compiling at worst a checkered record on taxes. He came into office in 2003 promising supply side tax cuts in income and capital gains taxes. After signing an income tax cut that slashed rates from 8.2% to 4.9% over five years, though, he backslid in raising other taxes and fees over the following years, including "tax increases on everything from cigarettes to fuel and a complicated, Dickensian, and later repealed surcharge on nursing home beds--all totaling a net tax increase of roughly $174 million through fiscal year 2006, according to the conservative Americans for Tax Reform." This year, he championed a popularly enacted $49 million sales tax hike to fund the construction of a Virgin Galactic spaceport in southern New Mexico.
New York: Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer surprised a lot of people when he promised on the campaign trail not to raise taxes after 12 years of Republican management in Albany. His record on the job has been more mixed, though not as bad as some of his Democratic cohorts. In March, Spitzer drew criticism from Mayor Bloomberg for a proposal to raise some $2 billion in taxes on banks (a crucial industry in New York City) through the closing of "loopholes," once again to finance a big-spending budget. The final budget backtracked significantly on those tax hike proposals, and contained a mixed bag for business taxes:
The budget does reduce the corporate tax rate from 7.5 percent to 7.1 percent and cuts the tax on manufacturing income to 6.5 percent from 7.5 percent. It also reduces the corporate alternative minimum tax from 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent. The moves will help save New York companies $150 million, according to the governor’s office. Other changes, however, will close what Spitzer has described as “loopholes” that allowed companies to shield income from state taxes. The changes will generate about $450 million in new revenue for the state. That means a net tax increase for businesses, Duerr says.
Spitzer is not done hunting for new sources of revenue, including squeezing stores owned by Native Americans in upstate New York to pay more in sales taxes. Spitzer has proposed property tax relief but is opposing a GOP plan to increase tax rebates for senior citizens.
Maryland: Martin O'Malley
Filling Bob Ehrlich's shoes in Maryland isn't easy, and newly elected Governor Martin O'Malley has tried to avoid pulling the trigger on new tax hikes even against the weight of Maryland's left-wing state legislature, opposing a hike in property taxes from 11.2 to 12 cents. But it ain't over yet:
"In the months ahead, I think we need to look at our entire tax structure and make it more modern, inclusive and fair," O’Malley (D) said...The state is required to set the residential tax rate by May 1.
Rising assessments across much of Maryland mean most homeowners will pay higher property taxes during the fiscal year that begins July 1, despite the board’s action to hold the line.
O'Malley has, in fact, drawn criticism for moving slowly in general (some calling him "O'Molasses"); the jury is still out on whether he will follow the lead of his tax-hiking brethren.
Kansas: Kathleen Sebelius
Kansas, as you would expect, has Republican majorities in both houses of the state legislature, and has formed a bipartisan consensus (including Governor Sebelius) around low taxes:
On the topic of taxes, it was again a good year to be a business lobbyist in Topeka. The Legislature helped business with an estimated $135 million tax reduction over the next five years with the phase-out of the franchise tax, and an unemployment tax reduction worth $176 million.
This year, the Legislature helped out the little guy, too, at least the elderly little guy. Social Security is now exempted from state income tax. And senior homeowners on a fixed income got a tax cut, too. Poor families of any age will be eligible for state assistance on insurance premiums.
Still, Republicans are worried that overspending will erode this policy in the future. And Gov. Sebelius, re-elected in 2006, has announced that she will continue her years-long push for a 50 cent hike in the cigarette tax to pay for new health care spending.
Arizona: Janet Napolitano
After major tax cuts she signed in 2006, albeit after negotiating down Republican proposals for larger cuts, newly rele-ected incumbent Napolitano urged a go-slow approach on Republican legislators looking for further cuts in 2007:
Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, has argued that the state should measure the impact of those cuts before enacting more, but she has not commented recently about where tax cuts figure into budget negotiations.
More recently, the Republican state House passed $62 million in new tax cuts, but Napolitano has endorsed a bipartisan Senate bill that does not include them. In general, Napolitano has acceded to the reality of Arizona's anti-tax mood.
The Good Guys
Not every Democrat is on the wrong side of the tax issue. Here are some who have learned to buck their party's orthodoxy on taxes:
Arkansas: Mike Beebe
Mike Huckabee's successor is off to a good start on taxes, signing into law some $200 million in tax cuts ranging from sales and property taxes to income taxes on low income earners and taxes on manufacturers' energy use.
Oklahoma: Brad Henry
Oklahoma has the nation's lowest tax burden, something the recently re-elected Gov. Henry applauds, and has previously enacted tax cuts still to come online. While Gov. Henry recently vetoed a budget bill passed by the legislature (which is divided among the two parties), tax hikes were not on anyone's radar and further cuts remain possible.
Ohio: Ted Strickland
Losing their way on taxes was a big part of the Ohio GOP's dramatic downfall in 2006, and especially with the GOP still holding the legislature, that lesson has not been lost on new Democratic Governor Ted Strickland. Strickland's new budget won unanimous support in the Ohio House, thanks in no small part to a popular increased property tax exemption for senior citizens, paid for with windfall money from the 1998 tobacco settlement. Strickland is also considering tax breaks for companies that are losing money, although one can debate whether that is really spending disguised as a tax break.
The Heretic
Jodi Rell of Connecticut
Finally, I should add here that at least one newly elected Republican governor has been every bit as bad as any Democrat. Jodi Rell of Connecticut got re-elected in a landslide largely by avoiding the Republican label, but now she runs a serious risk of destroying the GOP's low-tax brand in her state for a generation by proposing a massive 10% increase in the state income tax, while state "Democrats' proposal would raise even more money but would also cut taxes for the middle class . . . [and] increase state spending by 10.4 percent and increase taxes by $1.6 billion" by hiking the top tax rate by 40%. A hardy band of Republicans in the state legislature has proposed a "No Tax Increase Budget" that includes no tax hikes, but with 2-to-1 Democratic majorities in both houses, don't expect much. Connecticut voters have been stuck with an echo, not a choice.
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Arguably one of the best posts I've ever read here.
Great work. My only criticism is that you are too kind to Governor Rell.
Rell, in her 22-year public career as a legislator, lieutenant governor and governor, was known as a fiscal conservative. She campaigned for and was elected as governor in her own right saying she all that stood between the voters and a legislature bent on spending the state into oblivion. I could have voted for Rell's Democratic opponent and gotten the same tax and spend budget proposal without the deception.
Connecticut voters should have known better. We were deceived like this once before. Lowell Weicker won election as Governor of Connecticut running as a member of "A Connecticut Party" and campaigning against an income tax. After being sworn in Weicker became an advocate of the income tax that he had campaigned against. The income tax became law.
Rell's proposed spending exceeds the state's constitutional spending cap by $521 million. Connecticut's Constitution [see, Article XXVIII, Section 18, subsection b], permits exceeding the spending cap only when "the Governor declares an emergency or the existence of extraordinary circumstances." I don't see how Rell can do that with a straight face. The state has a projected budget surplus of $600 million and a rainy day fund of $1 billion.
Governor Rell says she wants to spend the tax increase on education. That's hard to accept. Only three states spend more money per student on public schools than Connecticut, and the state's teachers are among the highest paid in the nation. The problem obviously isn't money.
...and spend, VERY LIBERAL Republican is playing the DOD's $240 toilet seat game.
In particular she needs the increased revenues to cover things like the state DIM's extraordinarily enlightened policy of providing free Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra to the state's burgeoning HIV positive population at over five dollars a pop per pill.
Anybody remember the story about 'Typhoid Mary'?
Add to this the story of Brazilian President Lula's threat to unilaterally strip the still very valid patent from one of Merck's anti retroviral drugs because the Brazilian Government wants to be able to procure it more cheaply than Merck is willing to sell it to them, and you get a clearer picture of the modern Liberal's mindset concerning what is legal and what is not.
All I can say is that the new Democrat leadership and Democrat governor in Colorado are not going over so well. They rolled on into power with a mysical 'Colorado Promise' and it is becoming quite clear that such a promise was nothing more than another romantic catch-phrase that essentially means, coming out of a Democrat's mouth, "raise taxes." In Colorado they have also gone fringey on the social issues--a big no-no in Colorado--as well as raising taxes. In Colorado we have TABOR--a law that mandates voter approval before raising taxes. Ritter's property-tax bonanza is actually illegal and the Republican AG has hinted at challenging it in court.
Most of the governors you have listed preside in blue states. These tax programs will be unpopular no matter the state--but in red states like Colorado, Kansas, and Tennessee, they are untenable. It really has taken a Democrat majority to awaken Republicans in Colorado to the importance of having principle. I just can't imagine what the thought processes are for these Democrats. Do they not realize that raising taxes in conservative states like Colorado and Tennessee will be akin to political suicide? Or do they not even care?
Nice work. New Hampshire's Old Man On The Mountain recently fell apart and crumbled. Now I know why. He left town.
Just to clear things up a bit. The Old Man in the Mountains collapsed 4 years ago in 2003 while Craig Benson(R) was still governor. Benson was mostly loathed throughout the state which is was he was only the second incumbent governor in the last 78 years that was denied a a second term in NH.
John Lynch is probably one of the most highly approved of governors in the country. Democrats and Republicans seem to like Lynch, as of 4/12/07 is approval rating stands at 80%.
I think one thing that kept his numbers up, was that he had to work with a GOP controlled legislature.
Now the democrats are steamrolling through some very un "live free or die" like bills-sure some are small (like the seatbelt law for adults), but they sort of slam in the face of the state's libertarianish leanings.
I think if Lynch plays rubber stamp to the democrat controlled congress, those cross party line approval ratings are going to go down.
I can honestly say I didn't think Lynch was all that bad as a governor, but he isn't off to all that good a start, and I sure enough haven't liked much of what the democrats have taken on as their new mandate to turn New Hampshire into a nanny state with higher taxes.
About the only thing I don't think Lynch will be dumb enough to do is create a sales or income tax, every now and then the democrats (mostly) propose doing so, but that would pretty much be political suicide in this state right now.
I don't think his numbers are going to stay that high either, especially after he signs the civil unions bill. I think civil unions do fall in line with NH's libertarian side, but once you start talking about civil unions you automatically fire up some social conservatives.
That being said he will still be very popular and I have absolutely no idea what his ambitions are, but I have to think he is probably considering a Senate run. If that is the case, then John Sununu will be in for quite a fight in 08, especially when you consider that both House of Rep. seats and the majority in both house of the state legislature turned blue last cycle.
be a formidable opponent, something the democrats haven't really haven't mustered against the GOP senate candidates in NH.
But a part of me says Lynch will likely seek to stay in the governors office (probably a sure thing unless he really screws up) rather than risk losing both by running against Sununu.
I have mostly seen talks of the democrats trying to get Jean Shaheen to run against Sununu, but so far she doesn't seem to be biting.
Spitzer will drive more businesses and middle class folks out of NY. Just another anti-business elitist Dem.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
The most humorous/pathetic part of Governor Rendell's package was the tax on oil company profits. He rejected a large increase on the excise tax on gasoline, because it wouldn't be fair to Pennsylvanians, and instead proposed the tax on oil company profits -- as though the oil companies (which are already evading a similar tax via bookkeeping methods) wouldn't just pas that increased tax right along in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel and home heating oil. Fortunately, even liberal rags like The Philadelphia Inquirer were able to see that one.
When he campaigned for his first term, Mr Rendell promised us an increase in the state income tax, but, not to worry, he'd offset that with a cut in the property tax, and it would all work out pretty evenly. With a truly lame Republican running against him, Mr Rendell won -- and he kept half of his promise. The state income tax increased from 2.8% to 3.07%, but property taxes (which aren't controlled by the state government anyway) not only weren't cut, but increased.
This time, he wants to increase the sales tax from 6 to 7%, but, not to worry, we'll get a property tax cut!
It's amazing how a politician can tell the same lie twice, and have people still believe him.
...and in fact his history on taxes as governor is my main gripe with him. In other areas he hasn't been *too* bad, however. We've had worse.
But I lay the real blame on our GOP state leadership for the current state of things. Over and over in the past several years, IMHO, they've made so many truly dimwitted decisions (their "truly lame" choice, as you put it, being just the tip of the iceburg...), that I have to wonder at times whose side they're really on?
He's going to support increasing taxes, he just hasn't decided which ones yet.
Maryland has a particularly unique advantage on taxes. Being so close to DC, the housing market continually suffers from "irrational exhuberance," but because of its proximity to the public spigot, even a Fed Chairman can't prick that bubble. So collections from property taxes are pretty much guaranteed to rise every year. I share a townhouse with my landlord, and when she bought the place a couple years ago she thought she had everything worked out so she could afford the payments without having a tennant, partly because she was buying the house 13 months before the next property assessment and when the assessment came due, there is an ordinance limiting the amount her taxes could go up per year, regardless of how much the assessment went up. Instead, the paperwork wasn't filed in a timely manner and she got hit with a 40% jump in her taxes. Now, the limit per year that the assessment can go up is 10%, so you can pretty much figure a year over year increase of 10% on your property taxes.
Maryland doesn't need more taxes, just some fiscal responsibility. Which, being the bluest of blue states, it will never get.
The Democrats in the legislature are playing the same game in Minnesota. They are proposing MASSIVE across the board tax increases (income tax, sales tax, gas tax) including the introduction of the highest top tax rate in the country. And get this -- they want to do this while we are running a surplus. We just need to raise taxes so "the rich will pay their fair share."
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill
Why are we so opposed to taxes? I think we could use a few taxes. For starters ow about a tax on TV networks. We could have a tax on each affiliate they have in your state. On top of that we could have another tax on the affiliate itself. Another thing is out of state newspapers (ny slimes, USA Today etc). all of these people want more taxes and they are making so much money why not tax them? I think making them live up to there own principles (and paying for them) makes a lot of sense.
also what about taxes on entertainment royalties. More people who want taxes and therefore should pay for them. Since they are all out of state they should be easy targets. Better them than us!
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).