Articles tagged as

Taxes

Questons For The ‘Pro’ Income Tax Folks.

If you like income taxes so much, and they are so “fair,” why don’t you just move to a state that has them already? Are you put off by their lower quality of life, higher overall tax burden, larger populations of unemployed, higher poverty rates, higher crime rates, and invasive meddling bureaucracies of those other states?

RGGI and NH

Tom "counseled" our Republican NH State Senators.  Me?  Merely "counsel"?  Pshaw!  Naw, I turned up the heat a bit in doing what Tom requested: a reply! Indeed. This malarky about RGGI being a free market entity is merely that – malarky.  If it was, the free market would have created it, on its own, a … Read more

Clarity and Collective Bargaining?

UnionLabelClosed.jpg

Mr. Sapienza asks in the Union Leader, “Do legislators even know what state workers do?”
Perhaps some don’t. I know for a fact that some do…many have been state workers themselves. With so many flawed or misquided assumptions, the demagoguery lives on. 

Edward Sapienza of Manchester, through the Union Leader opposite editorial pages seeks to “offer some clarity and ask our state representatives and state senators, specifically what conservative values do [sic] you bring to the table?” Mr. Sapienza asserts this legislature is taking from the rank and file working class. “Getting state and county spending under control is, “taking from the working class?” pointing to the measure to remove collective bargaining.

Mr. Sapienza is a correctional officer at the Hillsborough County Jail.  As a Hillsborough County taxpayer, I am grateful and thankful for his service because being a correctional officer is a tough job. The care, custody, and control of our societal miscreants is a significant task, requiring patience, an even temperament and intelligence. Correctional Officers must follow a clearly defined set of rules, procedures and standards in dealing with our county prisoners and detainees, who, on the other hand, adhere to no such rules or standards, other than those imposed by the facility that keeps them. Few truly know what a day in the life of a correctional officer is truly like and often times, the only public mention of the men and women who do this job is when we see acts of wrong-doing by them in newspapers. It’s unfair.

Moreover, very few understand that in Mr. Sapienza’s workplace; even the most seemingly innocuous question or request by an inmate or detainee can tax a Correctional Officer. A Correctional Officer must be able to think quickly, evaluate, and understand that his response may have an unintended consequence. The CO must ask, “Did the inmate or detainee already ask another staff member? Did that staff member say, ‘no'”? If I say, ‘yes’, am I causing an inconsistency with my other staff members, enabling an inmate manipulation?” Being a correctional officer is a challenging career and is not a job for stupid people.

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Great Plan Dick

Dick Durbin, Richard, Rick, Ricky, Dicky, Dickard, The Dickster Durbin is suggesting an intervention for his state of Illinois. Apparently the tax and spender state implemented an internet sales tax on retailers. They were thinking that it might help them with their budget problem; I guess they left Terie “Billion Dollar Deficit” Norelli in charge of spending over there as well.

Pay As You Throw Had To Go

The Merrimack Town Council bent to the will of the voters and scrapped plans to institute a pay as you throw program. That would have required residents to buy special bags for trash at $1.00 or $1.50 per bag, and you could only use those bags at the town dump.

OK, maybe a couple words are necessary.

Steve posted this chart on Wednesday. Well, yesterday, the creator of that chart added a bit more info to it: Highlights: Top 1% income earners ($380K / year) earn 20% of all the wages They pay 38% of all Federal income taxes Proportionally, I would say that is more than their "fair" share.  Agree? Interesting … Read more

School Voucher Kids Do Better

I Tweeted this earlier, but since I’m short on time, it is more than Post-Worthy. Apparently school vouchers result in a higher graduation rate at a lower cost to taxpayers–

Green Choice

…this is a tax that can increase without ever seeing a public hearing. No one will testify. No one you vote for will be held to account for the tax increase. You will just pay more.

“The need for countries to maximize their take from their citizens”…Really? Is that all we are?

OK, this snippet is from the Economist of about a year ago (yeah, spending the last of my frequent flier miles on magazine subscriptions.  Hey, it allows me to sample some stuff for a short period of time that I wouldn’t ordinarily purchase).

It certainly is a Euro-centric philosophy expressed in its pages – and Big State to boot.  Oh certainly, from time to time, I’ve been surprised that they’ve agreed with my outlook on something.  That said, I could not say that their outlook other than Statist and almost always side with growing Govt.

Can you spot what caught my eye?  Oh, heck, I’ll make it easy for you:

High-tax European governments have complained in the past about competition from countries like Ireland; the current crisis may lead to more calls for co-ordination of tax policies.  Indeed, many countries will be raising taxes simultaneously, which may reduce the temptation for businesses to shift.  much depends on where countries start; it shouldd be easier for those iwth lower tax burdens to increase their take.

Higher earners can also be mobile.  So many French professionals moved to London in the past decade that Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, pleaded with them (and offered tax deals) to come back.  Britain is gradually losing its appeal to high-earning foreigners.  calculations by pricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting firm, show that British authorities will take a bigger tax bite out of the pay packet of a married exutive earning 250K Sterling ($370K) than any other G20 nation except Italy.

The need for…

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Reverend Jackboot!?

UCCThe left always considers any comment by clergy, in the secular affairs of state, an affront to imagined Constitutional separations unless the remarks support their positions.  Such is the case with the Reverend Gary M. Schulte of the United Church of Christ (UCC).  With a fusion of left wing talking points and liturgical flair, he leapt the imagined Jeffersonian separation of State and Church, to express his objection to the budget passed by the New Hampshire House.

If taxpayers do not pony up to the government, in the form of a larger state budget, people will suffer.  The old, the weak, the children….But we’ve no idea just how much of your money Reverend Gary will need you to give to the Government to end the suffering, nor can we ever.  Distress always expands to meet the supply of publicly funded services available to reduce it. We just need more even though no amount is ever enough; just look at the failed states of California, Michigan and New York whose pursuit of social justice with taxpayer dollars has made them so bankrupt that they no longer have the money to care for much of anything at all.

But the UCC does not seem interested in that risk.  They are just another myopic Christian/Marxist fusion church that seems willing to advocate state power to achieve warm and fuzzy ends.  It is Social Justice, which is essentially communism.  And communism, being a godless secular faith all its own, has no issue with polluting and then subjugating institutions like the UCC to achieve its ends, even converting or subverting their purposes to advance the growth of statism.  They started with the language, which UCC has embraced, then moved on to policy, which they now advocate. And now we have Reverend Gary, who is probably a great guy who means well, rent seeking for the left wing agenda, with the full power and faith of the UCC behind him, asking politicians to spend more money on government, as if government is the answer.

But if you saw the UCC web site, you’d not be at all surprised.

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And to go along with Steve’s Picture of the Day….

Can You Spell I.R.S.? Sure you can! Do you know what it means?   Sure you do! Can you think of other words that start I.R.S.? I know you do….and here’s some more: (H/T:  Big Government)

Big Ben, Parliament

Rumor has it Mr. Obama gave a speech yesterday about something. I didn’t watch it and with good reason. Been there, done that. Two faced, self contradicting, tired, and repetitive. Put another way, Big Ben, Parliament.

Municipal Outsourcing Works…

There is a city in Georgia that outsourced just about everything. The result? Better services, low taxes, no pension bombs, and money to spare.

The (other) Picture of The Day

New Hampshire may have a chart just like this one, so with any luck someone will be kind enough to provide it. Until then this shows us what Ohio Education Association Union Employees make compared to the other suckers who “also pay taxes.” A theme repeated in every state most likley. Data is supposed to be from the US Dept of Labor.

Meet Terie “Billion Dollar Deficit” Vu.

NH Journal is reporting more fear-mongering from the left, and from the usual suspects. Teri “Billion Dollar Deficit” Norelli (D- scaring women and children), is promising us that the Republican Budget will ‘put peoples lives at risk.

The Right To Your Money: Nothing ‘Fair’ About It.

Tax Dollar Black HoleThe Granite State Fair Tax Coalition, discovering that it’s "percentage of income model" argument against property taxes really applies to all things, and that lower income people pay a higher percentage of their income on everything, (a problem resolved through hard work and perseverance to which we apparently do not have a right) has announced that it is looking for a way to make "Rich BastardsTM" pay more for everything.

One example?

How about Marriage.  Now that we’ve determined that Marriage is a civil right, (unless you are too young, too closely related, are already married, to uncivil to be or stay married, or want to remain single) why does a decent wedding (or any wedding) have to cost low income workers as much as 100% of their annual income while "Rich BastardsTM" only have to pay 25% to as little as 2% of theirs?  The answer is of course a Statewide wedding tax on higher income wage earners to subsidize the constitutionally protected right of marriage–because you can’t help who you fall in love with.

The plan could create a State Bureau of Weddings and Funerals, staffed by at least a dozen bureaucrats, (with taxpayer supported wages, benefits, pensions, office space, paid vacations, supplies, and protest signs that actually come with sick notes attached; for days when they need to go the State House and make demands of the taxpayers elected-officials on matters of workers rights etc,).  These fine individuals would be charged with handling questions and processing the paperwork and fees related to the weddings and funerals tax placed upon job creators, and the Rich Bastard population in general, (“Rich” to be defined by the collectors of the tax based on their perception of revenue needed) for the distribution of said revenues to those less fortunate seeking lavish weddings that have nothing to do with love, everything to do with impressing people whom you never see, and who are really just there for the free meal, and with any luck, an open bar.

One potential issue to the new Bureau’s mandate, however, is the rights of single people who would not benefit from the tax, or maybe this is just a rhetorical device on my part to segue into my next sarcastic rant.

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