09.02.11
There’s nothing bold about being greedy
This post from Paul Burka show what’s wrong with the political media in Texas, Dan Patrick calls for 2-cent sales tax increase for education. Wealthy right-wing tea party state Sen. Dan Patrick advocates for raising the sales tax to pay for educatrion. The sales tax is an extremely regressive tax, (the less one make the more one pays), and Burka calls this “.. a bold statement.” There’s nothing bold about a rich man advocating for higher taxes on those at the bottom. As a matter of fact that’s what got us into our current mess in the first place.
What Burka leaves out is the fact that the reason we need to make up money for schools is because of the 2006 GOP tax swap scheme which created the shortfall to begin with, How the Texas Governor Created His State’s Budget Crisis.
He Was Warned
“As of this moment, this legislation is a staggering $23 billion short of the funds needed to pay for the promised property tax cuts over the next five years. … These are conservative estimates.”—Texas Comptroller Carole Strayhorn, warning Gov. Rick Perry about his 2006 tax reform proposal
This is how wing-nuts work and how the traditional media enables them, by omitting the context. In 2006 the a GOP plan was passed that cut the fairest tax Texas has, the property tax. Our politicians told us the money would be made up by a new “margins tax”, and it wasn’t. It has instead created a structural shortfall, that has lead to budget shortfalls each biennium.
But now Patrick is being called “bold” for taking the final step in shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to poor, working, and middle class Texans. There’s nothing bold about it, it’s greed, plain and simple.
Further Reading:
Who Pays Texas Taxes.
The New Resentment of the Poor.