Ballot question 3 in Massachusetts would cut the state sales tax if passed (by a few percentage points). Would the gain to consumers be offset by losses to education and police funding? Satan and Frank Faust weigh the pros and cons in the latest episode of "The Devil Made Me Blog It"!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Yes on 3 is the answer.
Firstly, sales tax, unless it applies to financial instruments, is regressive. The working poor spend a disproportionate amount of their money directly, rather than being able to invest (or save) it.
Secondly, mismanagement is part of the problem, so is the government trying to do too much.
Crime may be on the rise but, maybe you should ask why? What are "more police" going to do about it? Enforcement is like Tylenol. It makes your fever go down, but it doesn't do shit to fight the infection.
We still have a system that punishes people for silly reasons. Every single person on probation for selling pot... wasted money. Every person processed for prostitution? wasted money. Every traffic stop for otherwise safe driving (a rolling stop when nobody else is at the intersection?) wasted money.
The thing is, if you just let them keep raising more and more money, where is the incentive to use that money wisely? Maybe if schools and vital programs are hit first, then, we need to replace the people making that decision?
We have an AG who has made a public case for going after craigslist... why? A murder? A murder where the killer was caught? A murder that primarily was caused by the states own laws which created a black market where people could be abused with impunity by truely bad people?
WHy can't we replace people who want to put band aides over problems and replace them with people who want to find real solutions.
Post a Comment