The economy is slowing, consumer confidence is way way down and people at the lower end of the income distribution are hurting because of high gas prices and related inflation. So what does Schwarzenegger propose? A sales tax hike. Genius. What better way to further slow down the economy while screwing poor people at the same time?
Monday, August 04, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
There's an old joke where a man offers a woman a million dollars to have just one night of sex with him. As soon as the woman reluctantly agrees, the man offers her just $100 instead. When she protests indignantly, "What kind of a woman do you think I am?!" the man replies that they have already established that--they are now just haggling over the price.
So while economically speaking, I agree with RbR 100%, politically speaking, I think I grasp the wisdom of his proposal. This is Arnold's million-dollar offer. If he can just get the Republicans to accept some kind of tax hike--anything--then the door is open.
In time the debate will shift to what sort of tax hike to accept, rather than whether there should be a tax hike at all--and Arnold needs that, because a budget without new taxes is simply untenable.
I hope you're right Dr. S. But given the boneheaded tax and revenue policies Schwarzenegger has implemented in the past (like his UC graduate student fees hikes), I suspect he is serious about this proposal.
When he needed to either cut spending or raise fees at the UC's he picked the one way of doing it that would put 100% of the burden on the academic mission and none of it on the administrators. PhD students do not pay their own fees - their departments do. By increasing grad students fees, Schwarzenegger was imposing a massive shift in resources away from the academic departments.
He is an idiot and the fact that he was elected governor - twice - forever ends Californians' right to claim to be more sophisticated than the rest of the country.
California is more sophisticated than the rest of the country? I thought they were just flaky.
Yes, flaky like a delicious pie crust. Mmmm... Floor pie.
Nobody ever said Californians were more politically sophisticated. Just more likely to have a mouth full of teeth.
The increased sales tax idea is abominable. If it were up to me, I would eliminate the sales tax entirely and put all the emphasis on the progressive income tax. But the GOP hates the idea of an income tax.
If Arnold had not shriveled his testicles off with so much steroid use, he would urge fixing Prop 13, at least for commercial properties.
Hmmm....floor pie. Great name for a pub trivia team - but I digress.
Lots of people think Californians are more sophistocated. People who scoff at Minnesota Democrats picking Al Franken for example...
California needs a new constitutional convention to clean out all the crap that has managed to pile up in there due to the initiative process. Everything is an "amendement" to the state constitution. It needs to reform its budget process as well. As I have said, there is no reason for a this state with all its resources to be so broke. It's bad management, corruption, etc. from top to bottom.
Hear, hear, USWest! I desperately want to see a constitutional convention in California, for precisely the reasons you said. But I'm not waiting up nights.
I don't scoff at Minnesota's DFL for choosing Al Franken because I think them unsophisticated.
I think it's just a bad choice to put up a clown when people are worried about the economy and terrorism. Al Franken would have been a much better candidate in 2006, because he could have been part of a the somewhat subversive insurgent feeling of that election. Not today. As it is, Minnesota's - which voted for a Democrat for senate in 2006 - is now likely to re-elect Republican Norm Coleman for the senate, even though he was earlier this year viewed as the most vulnerable sitting Republican after Sununu.
Franken will lose. A more normal Democrat probably could have won that seat. Pity.
Post a Comment