My faith in America is restored. My furtive bid to try to acquire a Green Card may be renewed again in anger, and the people of New Hampshire or Texas may yet hail me as one of their Britain-escaping sons. Yes, folks, the voters of Washington State’s Seattle have rejected the idiotarian espresso and latte tax, recently proposed, by a margin of seven voters to three. Good on you, Seattle. May the three out of ten of you who voted for it, be shipped out on a boat to Guardian-loving Britain, immediately, to see what it’s like to live under the corrupt welfare monolith you would so dearly love to create.
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17 comments to The people espress themselves |
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Thanks!
We need every bit of help we can get.
As a conservative living in Los Angeles, I can see the practical problem of collecting only on drinks that contain espresso, but not on coffee. It’s not like they use a seperate register to record transaction (not all cash register are computerized, and even those that are computer still require re-programming, something that this tax won’t cover).
Essentially, this feels like the openning scene of Brazil, where the widow of a man tortured to death have to pay for the bill for torturing service of her husband.
Oh big deal. A dime tax on a specialty drink is rejected, and this is supposed to be some great victory for freedom?
If it were me, the proposed tax would have been on coffee drinks with non-coffee additives, like those froofy dessert grande hazelnut mocha butterfat lattes. We could fund education and reduce future Medicare expenditures at the same time.
mmmm, froofy dessert grande hazelnut mocha butterfat latte.
Zathras, if you feel taxes are too low or that education and Medicare need more money, you are quite free to write a check in any amount to whatever government authority you feel is underfunded.
Being a caffeine-thriving Seattleite (not to mention as a matter of principle), I’m quite happy the tax failed.
I just needed to speak up and say that this hardly makes Seattle a center of market liberalism…
Still, it’s a good thing to see a tax fail at the polls here. Also passing was a measure instructing the police to make enforcing marijuana laws their lowest priority.
An espresso tax in Seattle. I’m still marveling at the stupidity of the whole concept. Even Seattle’s sanfranciscoid politics couldn’t make this one work.
And to those who say that it’s only a dime, or only on a few drinks, or for The Children: Do you really think that it would have stayed that way?
It just goes to show that people want to see the tax and the benefit very largely LINKED.
Ringfencing tax revenue is THE sneaky way to start to demolish the failure reward system some call the welfare state.
This is further proof that people tend to reject big government when it’s obvious they have to foot the bill themselves.It’s back to old ‘soak the rich’ from now on for tax hikers.
Zathras believes the State of Washington needs more revenue to keep up its good works.
I’d like to help. Zathras, please take down this address:
_________
Washington State Department of Revenue
Taxpayer Account Administration
PO Box 47476
Olympia, WA 98504-7476
________
Feel free to send them as much of your money as you want.
Cheers
I know that this is a truism, but there is a great disconnect between answering polls and practical actions. So, in response to poll questions such as “would you like to see Medicare more fully funded” most people will answer “yes, of course”, but then they very rarely would voluntarily increase their tax burden, even to fund the said Medicare.
That’s why all the tax-loving politicians present their tax-increase proposals as touching “somebody else”. Hence the Soak the Rich rhetoric; nobody however mentions that as far as goverment is concerned practically anybody who earns money qualifies as The Rich (e.g. couples such as a teacher and secretary).
Also this is why the referenda and propositions out here in CA don’t talk about taxes: all the money spending “extra” projects are supposed to be financed by issuing bonds.
And if everything else fails there are always courts to lend a tax-loving politician a helping hand. Recently in SF we voted to stop giving cash to homeless and instead spend that money on shelters and services for the homeless. Our Overlord Judges decided in their enlightened wisdom that we the people have no right to make decisions concerning our own money.
Well there’s only one answer, a second blocking “house of representation” where your get one vote per pound of income tax stolen from you.
The first house proposes, the second house laughs at their group tyranny!
Katherine nails it.
A true story here. Clinton directed one of his tax increases at the “super-rich.” The definition of “super-rich” included my mother-in-law. Who is a grade school teacher. In Wisconsin.
I tired of all the “for the children” emphasis years ago. It’s gotten quite ridiculous. Seems like every new government program is “for the children” with the implication that the taxpayer is a big meanie if he/she questions uncle sugar’s motives or goals
Andy,
Texas is good, if you stay away from lefty enclaves like Austin or San Angelo.
Drop us a line if you need a bed while scouting out opportunities down here in Dallas.
Any time a politican wants to do things “for the children”, remind them that John Geoghan also did things for the children.
Yes indeed this was a great victory for freedom. The percentage of the Seattle budget may be small, but the PRINCIPLE involved is important.
The voters of a “liberal” (in the modern sense) American city have rejected a “luxury” tax that was to fund childcare (a great sacred cow of the welfare statists). A more clear cut rejection of J.K. Galbraith style “liberalism” would be difficult to think up.
No great victory for freedom, just typical leftists wanting somebody else to pay while they sip a tax free latté – The drip coffee exemption was probably the killer: why shouldn’t the uncultured slobs (R) pay too!
Seattle has got to find money somewhere to pay for the stupid monorail, so it’ll be more beer and cigarette taxes for some other program which they’ll back and fill.