Give politicians more money and they will not only find a way to spend all of it, they will always want more, and more, and more...
We used to have a 3% state sales tax- then they raised it to 4%... not bad, you say?
Well, not by itself, but then the local school board needed "more money... for our childen..."
( starting to get the drift? )
... to build new schools, hire more teachers- so they conned the local voters into passing a "splost"- Special Local Option Sales Tax...
We are currently debating the fourth hike in this, to 8%, and oddly enough- they still don't have quite enough money...
Even more odd? A few years ago, the School Board "lost" 7, or 8, or 9, or 10, or 11 million dollars- they never could quite figure out exactly how much they lost, the guy supervising the money got sick & died convieniently, the Grand Jury got nowhere fast, and people just kind of lost interest in finding out where all those millions of their own money disappeared to...
Here in California, we have capitulated to this madness. We have 8%+ Sales Tax (depending on additional city sales taxes) we have 1.5% property taxes per year, we have 8% income tax, we have $1.50 per pack cigarette tax (which now also applies to other tobaccos), we have 20 cents per gallon Gasoline tax, alcohol taxes.
We also have cameras on the intersections and highways so they can fine you without having to pay for a cop to pay attention to the traffic, we have very mean parking meter attendants who have quotas to make.
And with all that, we still have a $23 billion budget deficit!
California should be the example for all of you to fight these increases. Remind your constituents about what can happen. The governor of California now wants to increase taxes across the board to make up this shortfall. But we will have to increase taxes 30% to make up the shortfall! It's sheer madness out here. Don't let it happen over there... or else there will be no place for we Californians to flee!