This is a really bad idea
Oct. 6th, 2010 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foolsguineaProposition A, Missouri 2010.
Full text
Ballotpedia entry
KansasCity.com article
Last night I caught part of a TV spot claiming that allowing an earnings tax to continue without being constantly reauthorized is a "loophole." No, that's not a loophole; that's how government works.
This proposition as written would take away the ability of voters to add such a tax, while "graciously" permitting them to keep any such tax so long as they keep reauthorizing it every five years, forever. That's unbalanced.
If it were balanced, it would look like this: [NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING IS NOT WHAT IT SAYS AT ALL] Cities without earnings taxes would have to vote not to have an earnings tax every five years to get one; & cities with earnings taxes would have to vote whether to keep it, raise it, or lower it. See how that works? If you want to move it down, you have to be prepared to move it back up later.
This sort of thing is so stupid. Rules designed to always ratchet taxes down & never bring them up are absurd.
No matter what shape the economy is in, to permanently take away any fairly designed tool of the state to levy funds is irresponsible in the extreme. What I mean by "fairly designed" is taxes from the general economy, not by targeting weak individuals or by invading one's neighbors.
If this is passed, it will only prove that Missourians are unfit for democracy. This will not be not the end. Success will only spur the anti-tax fanatics to further acts of sabotage. One day there will be a constitutional amendment to ban all tax increases, period. That's the objective.
And eventually, after a few decades, the democratic state will be destroyed by the limits it put on itself. If we're lucky, it will be overthrown by some new tyranny capable of governing responsibly. If we're unlucky, we will limp along with a crippled state for generations, a poor people with a culture so conditioned not to tax that we are incapable of public investment. Our youth will leave--perhaps overseas if the rot reaches enough of the USA--just to be educated. Our infrastructure will crumble untended. Our courts will be completely corrupt, the sole province of those who can pay court costs to be heard.
If you vote yes on this bill, you forfeit your right to the vote in my eyes. If this passes, I will finally abandon any hope for democracy in this state, & seek the best way to remove the franchise from a people clearly too foolish or too careless to govern themselves.
Yeah, that's how stupid I think this is. So, in short: One-way limits on the power to tax: bad. Voting for this: good way to drive foolsguinea to a life of armed rebellion against the civic order.
Full text
Ballotpedia entry
KansasCity.com article
Last night I caught part of a TV spot claiming that allowing an earnings tax to continue without being constantly reauthorized is a "loophole." No, that's not a loophole; that's how government works.
This proposition as written would take away the ability of voters to add such a tax, while "graciously" permitting them to keep any such tax so long as they keep reauthorizing it every five years, forever. That's unbalanced.
If it were balanced, it would look like this: [NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING IS NOT WHAT IT SAYS AT ALL] Cities without earnings taxes would have to vote not to have an earnings tax every five years to get one; & cities with earnings taxes would have to vote whether to keep it, raise it, or lower it. See how that works? If you want to move it down, you have to be prepared to move it back up later.
This sort of thing is so stupid. Rules designed to always ratchet taxes down & never bring them up are absurd.
No matter what shape the economy is in, to permanently take away any fairly designed tool of the state to levy funds is irresponsible in the extreme. What I mean by "fairly designed" is taxes from the general economy, not by targeting weak individuals or by invading one's neighbors.
If this is passed, it will only prove that Missourians are unfit for democracy. This will not be not the end. Success will only spur the anti-tax fanatics to further acts of sabotage. One day there will be a constitutional amendment to ban all tax increases, period. That's the objective.
And eventually, after a few decades, the democratic state will be destroyed by the limits it put on itself. If we're lucky, it will be overthrown by some new tyranny capable of governing responsibly. If we're unlucky, we will limp along with a crippled state for generations, a poor people with a culture so conditioned not to tax that we are incapable of public investment. Our youth will leave--perhaps overseas if the rot reaches enough of the USA--just to be educated. Our infrastructure will crumble untended. Our courts will be completely corrupt, the sole province of those who can pay court costs to be heard.
If you vote yes on this bill, you forfeit your right to the vote in my eyes. If this passes, I will finally abandon any hope for democracy in this state, & seek the best way to remove the franchise from a people clearly too foolish or too careless to govern themselves.
Yeah, that's how stupid I think this is. So, in short: One-way limits on the power to tax: bad. Voting for this: good way to drive foolsguinea to a life of armed rebellion against the civic order.
