Saturday shorts
Breathing room for the bay
Senators managed to find enough bipartisan comity this week in Washington to pass — 64-35 — a five-year, $500 billion farm bill that will save taxpayers $23 billion — but not at the expense of saving the Chesapeake Bay. …
The wrong case for judicial restraint
For a U.S. Supreme Court that has not shied away from big, overreaching decisions, it was fleetingly surprising that justices this week steered the narrow course on the one case that called out for judicial action. …
’No tax’ takes a heavy toll
A hue and cry went up in Portsmouth this year over hefty new tolls to support desperately needed tunnel improvements the state cannot afford. Not without a tax increase. …
June 23, 2012 - 6:57 AM
Regarding tolls and I95….
You ask..”What’s a tax averse commonwealth to do?”
I95(just one road) needs $12B of work over the next 25 years…REALLY?
For starters think about getting it done for $10B…AND THEN START DRILLING.
Louisiana generates nearly $1.5 Billion/yr in royalties/leasing revenue from the mining of oil and natural gas. That doesn’t take into account the revenue generated by thousands of new/productive citizens brought to the state of Virginia. Imagine the revenue from income and sales taxes as families locate in Va. Housing prices could appreciate..more revenues for local schools.
Maybe that’s what a tax averse commonwealth should do.
I enjoyed Ken Conklin’s article “Jolly good! Bring back the Queen.” However, I just wanted to point out an error. In the third paragraph, the last sentence of the article reads, “Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, produced two children.” The Queen and Prince Philip have four children: (1) Prince Charles, (2) Princess Anne, (3) Prince Andrew and (4) Prince Edward.
#1 Especially since tolls and other such “user” or “excise” type taxes are patently regressive and for this & other reasons thwart the economy.
Virginia shouldn’t just stop at oil and gas. We should also mine our equally abundant reserves of gold, silver, platinum, and diamonds to pay for our roads.
I remember growing up, when my family traveled from Rhode Island to visit families in North Carolina, we often have to travel through New Jersey and their multiple toll booths. By the time I was about 20, the only toll booth was at the entrance and exit of the state of New Jersey. My point – it will take time for the toll booth to be “phased out” when the money is being met to improve the tunnel. Although, I would say that $4 is pretty dang high for a toll.
One of the biggest problem with budget hawks is they keep forgetting that just because they are cutting spending, they aren’t also generating revenue. Without money coming in, how in the world can Congress or Virginia spend? Hmm?
Let this also be recorded, I am not liberal, but a centrist-right person with some moderate view, and some common sense.
I don’t think we have “a tax averse commonwealth” nearly so much as an honesty averse commonwealth.
#5 “Without money coming in, how in the world can Congress or Virginia spend? Hmm?”
True by definition. But if what you mean to ask is how can tax revenues be increased without raising taxes….simple, broaden the tax base.
It never ceases to amaze me that those (not necessarily you) advocating for economic simuli by borrowing, printing & spending more money, are so adverse to stimulating the economy by “letting” (yes, scarry isn’t it) people keep & spend their own money.
If we are allowed to keep more of our taxes, then we the citizens will spend that money on paving roads? paying police, firefighters, teachers etc?
Privatize the roads! In fact, privatize ALL services including schools, security (military and police) services, utilities, and healthcare. That goes for Medicare and Medicaid; forget the halfway-socialist Obamacare. Medicare and Social Security are the biggest socialist inventions anyone has ever seen in this nation.
I don’t know if this is going to turn into an Open Thread but those interested in the privatization of public services may enjoy this article from the NY Times. I’ve not yet read it completely but it’s about a community that’s doing everything it can to private these services.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/business/a-georgia-town-takes-the-peoples-business-private.html?emc=eta1
#8 One more time. If one advocates more money in the system to stimulate the economy, then which makes more sense…..leaving it there or taxing & borrowing (and printing more, thus diluting it’s value, i.e., affect)?
Expanding the economy & thus the tax base will produce greater tax revenue vis-avis any given tax rate. What the tax rate(s) should be, and how revenues are spent, are policy issues.
Mutt, you are indeed “on to something”. The specious argument that getting more blood out of turnips will turn this economic crisis or the revenue decrease around is pure sophistry IMO. When you see who has the most, who has profited even as the rest of us have lost ground, it is quite apparent that we grow revenue with a tax structure that gets the money from where the money is. It is not the working people who are saving and sitting on large amounts of cash. It is not the working people who are not buying, not shopping, not contributing to the “supply and demand” economy we have. We are doing all we can do with less income, less actual wherewithal and less security. That has been our plight for over a decade. WE are not the problem.
#12 Let’s grow turnips. More turnips. Let’s draw from those turnips so as not to overfarm the turnips we have, thus less turnips to draw from.
Once again, you take a fundamental economic principle and turn it into emotional, political rhetoric. Back to the previous thread of doublespeak.
Jim Lucas, I have tried to ignore you but since you will not return the favor, I think it is more than worth noting that you complain of “doublespeak” while literally posting rambling incoherent ‘mumbo jumbo’.
A fundamental economic policy that thinks it can fix this mess on the backs of workers and the poor is a fundamentally lousy economic policy. Blood from turnips is just as productive and stupid.
BTW, anyone (Jim Lucas) who can attempt to argue that the loss of over half-a-million public sector jobs does not hurt the economy instead of help it is not all that great at presenting “fundamental economic principle” in the first place!
#14, #15 No one has advocated “an economic policy that thinks (sic) it can fix this mess on the backs of workers and the poor….”
Please explain how growing the economy, & hence the tax base, does so. Still waiting on the Saunders Treatise of Constant Demand for Oil & the Myth of Supply & Demand Dynamics on Price.
Will you address these questions (your claims) or just keep repeating your sophmoric dodges?
Are you now pretending not to like “sophmoric dodges”? I have answered all your questions you just like to wallow instead of moving on. No thanks.
What about the “fundamental economic policy” that is causing all of this mess on the backs of, and at the expense of workers and the poor, that is creating more of the workers and poor? Aren’t there fundamental flaws in that approach?
Put differently, staying on the road we are currently traveling will have the effect of making everyone poor.
Of course, that’s the socialist dream: if you eliminate all wealth whatsoever, then everyone is poor (well, except those in Washington, of course), and noone is wealthy, and we finally have true equality! Then NOTHING can be done on the backs of the working and poor, because there are no working and poor because – relatively speaking – EVERYONE is poor! Yay! Equality at last!
You seriously can argue that it is economic policy that is “causing all of this mess on the backs of, and at the expense of workers and the poor, that is creating more of the workers and poor”? You are actually going to argue that? We have given the wealthy and business every benefit we can give them. Taxes are at modern history lows, it is a employer’s paradise, we still reward them for taking jobs overseas, we still give them extra tax incentives and advantages, we still pay and bribe them to hire, we still give them corporate welfare out the wazoo and you are going to say that? Really?
Yes, I’m actually going to argue that. What else could it be?
You yourself helped make my point:
“We have given the wealthy and business every benefit we can give them” – yes, it’s called croney capitalism (or croneyism) (though “the wealthy” and “business” are not synonymous). It is a money-driven political system that derives economic policies that provide security, favor and protection to the politically well-connected and campaign money to the politically powerful, a modern-day phenomenon that sees the corporate croneys as the successors to the Church as the political powerhouses. No, it is NOT a free market phenomenon, and you only need to go look at the wailing and teeth at the thought that a big popular business might go under – when it should have, and would have in a free market. The bailouts were nothing but croneyism, and definite manifestations of modern economic policy. More QE2, fractional reserve banking, inflationary monetary policy…all are designed to help the incompetent corporation at the expense of the individual. That helps make my point.
“Taxes are at modern history lows” – well, that depends on who you ask and how you define terms (lies, damned lies, and statistics), but even accepting your claim, it’s an economic policy issue, isn’t it? And people are still unhappy with their tax rates…why is that, do you suppose?
“…it is a employer’s paradise…” – as an employer, I am REALLY curious as to how you can make that claim.
“…we still reward them for taking jobs overseas…” – yup. I’ve mentioned before that is the policies that REWARD business for going overseas that should be scorned, not the businesses that take advantage of the policies. Change the policies, the practices change. A policy issue. Thank you for helping to make my point.
“…we still give them extra tax incentives and advantages…” – see my response to your first point. Not a free market.
“…we still pay and bribe them to hire…” – see my response to your first point. Not a free market.
“…we still give them corporate welfare out the wazoo…” – see my response to your first point. Not a free market.
Here’s the problem. You, like most liberals, have bought into the notion that the policies that are not working are free market capitalist policies that are failing, when NONE of them would exist in a free market. The policies that are failing – and yes, they are failing, or your screed in #19 would be meaningless – are the culmination of 100 years – more or less – of failed liberal policies and Keynesian economics. NONE of them would exist in a truly free market.
Of course, the solution sets differ: liberals (I broadly apply the term to modern liberals, neocons, and 90% of both the democrat and republican parties) want to bestow MORE control to the state, on the notion, I guess, that if 100 years of liberal policies haven’t worked, we have to keep turning the screws, so they’re bound to sometime. Oh, and keep changing the definitions of success.
Free market types figure that if 100 years of liberal policies have failed, and history has shown that free market policies DO work, then it’s a pretty simple decision. Of course, that would mean the modern liberals, neocons, and 90% of both the democrat and republican parties would have to yield power, and that’s not going to happen.
#19 “We have given the wealthy and business every benefit we can give them. Taxes are at modern history lows,…”
First, “the wealthy and business”. You equate the two & I don’t think to honor either. Are you even remotely aware of the risk small business takes? That they represent over 50% of GDP & employment? Second, we have the highestcorporate/business tax rate in the world (by the way, this is why jobs go overseas, and why people who are responsible for the viability of companies, often international companies, send them there. That & the fact we live in an international market. This market involves advantages of trade in both directions, including the employment market.)
If you want to help “workers & the poor”….or how’bout just all of us, we need to elect a President who understands these basic concepts (“mumbo jumbo?). Not continue down this road of failed social engineering & emotional mantra from the choir.
#17 I believe you have, in effect, answered.