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Lying tax opponents and the lies they tell
By adamg on Fri, 01/30/2009 - 11:06pm
Lance explains why people harrumphing about Patrick's proposal to let cities and towns raise the meals tax are full of it:
... Anyone who tells you that the local meals tax will hurt business in one town and drive diners to another is lying to you (And if they dare suggest that it might drive diners out of state - where Connecticut already has a 6% meals tax, Rhode Island and New Hampshire 8%, and Vermont 9% - they don't deserve your time). ...
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Comments
Just Nitpicking
This is not my area, but I believe there are actually fields of research that can often tell you whether, say, people will drive further to avoid an X% meal tax difference.
I think one of the first things an expert will tell you is that consumers are not perfectly rational actors. So, "doing the math" to determine the most rational consumer behavior does not necessarily tell you what actual consumer behavior will be.
Lance strikes me as
the kind of guy that tells you how to fix a Swiss watch but doesn't know what time it is. Somehow, antitax rhetoric is evil but protax rhetoric is enlightened wisdom. Huh? Reality is this is a power play by Deval. ONE DAY after DeMasi quits, taking with him the protection for his lobbyist friend Richard (son of "Sonny")McDonough, tax increase on beer is proposed. McDonough just happens to be the lobbyist for the Mass. Malt Beverage Association as well as the controversial software company. Deval is just trying to find out if McDonough still has juice without DeMasi. (You didn't think these people had any interest in the public welfare, did you?)
taxing politics
I think this is about raising revenue for the state and towns wherever it wont hurt a politician where it counts, elections.
Meals tax is undemocratic. People have to eat and since we would never dream of taxing food, why is it OK to tax prepared food? If we're all hard working productive workers with 10 hours work days, why should we not be able to buy our food without having it taxed?
If Patrick can raise $100 million (whatever) with a new meals tax, even if the revenue stays in the town its collected, it solves a problem without a political cost. You haven't heard Patrick mention raising the income tax rate, have you?
He entered office talking about all day school and pre-school education and now we're down to this.
Borrowing to borrowing, debt to debt.
Yeah, anything seemed possible during the Bush administration's consumer debt boom. Chances are President Obama's public debt boom will bring back those glory days.
I'm driving an extra 40 miles to buy a meal tonight
NOT!! Who in their right mind would go out of their way to not pay an extra 1% on meals tax or to not pay for tax on some candy? These taxes are a good idea. Restaurants and candy shops won't be going out of business due to this. These taxes don't amount to a lot for an individual unless they are buying dinners which cost hundreds of dollars or if they are "candyoholics."
They don't mean anything to
They don't mean anything to anybody yet they're important to the state? Good one.
I say reduce Chapter 70 by 1%. Who'd ever know the difference?
What of the lying tax proponents and the lies they tell?
Taxes hurt business. Incereasing both the meals and the alchohol tax will hurt the restaurants that are already struggling to get customers in the door. Add to that the increase in the hotel tax and the occupancy of those hotels will fall unless they reduce their rates to offset the tax - not likely.
Why should we support the growing State and Federal governments, still hiring, while the private sector is hemoraging jobs. Tax proponents are apologists for big government and enable the inefficiency, cronyism and theft that allows career pols to take from the citizens they are supposed to represent and use the funds for their own purposes.