Taxes

[CancelMyService]

I really hate how taxes have become such a hot button issue to the point where a politician really can't pledge to try to fix any problems without the opposition screaming "OMG RAISE TAXXXXXXXXXXXXES!@!" as a kneejerk response.

Yes, it's true no one likes taxes. It's also true that they are a necessary evil for any civilized country to function. Everyone likes to vote for the guy who promises to cut taxes without realizing that cutting taxes means that things like road repair or schools or the pipes that pump the water/sewage to and from your house have less money. When one person cuts taxes to the point where basic services cannot function properly, the only way to fix is for the next person to raise them. That guy ends up being unfairly painted as a "tax and spend" politician when usually it's just done to repair the damage the last guy did.

It extends to other areas too, look at how people go bananas over something that should be a no brainer like everyone having access to health care. People will actually be against access to treatment that could save their life or someone else's because it may *cue evil music* RAISE THEIR TAXES~! I mean, right now my deductions on my pay check for my health/dental/vision insurance are just about equal to what the feds take out for taxes. Why is one amount acceptable and the other politically radioactive?

[MadMike]

I agree that taxes are a necessary evil, and that sometimes they do need to be raised. But too many politicians think that raising taxes will solve everything, that we, the taxpayers, have money trees growing in our backyards.

Any idiot can raise taxes. For once, I'd like to see some politician come up with a real solution.

[CancelMyService]

I agree, but when you have a situation where the previous person in office cuts taxes to the point of disaster there's really not much else you can do to fix it. If the problem is that programs are not recieving enough funding to function, how else are you supposed to restore it?

[daleduke17]

But too many politicians think that raising taxes will solve everything, that we, the taxpayers, have money trees growing in our backyards.



And God forbid if anyone is against a tax increase that happens to be for a school. "It's for the children". :mad: I'm so sorry that Little Timmy doesn't get his own personal laptop, or a digital blackboard because I don't want to fork over "only 20 dollars more a year".

Also, have any of you noticed in your areas some of the bullshit things with tax referendums? Around here public sentiment is:

Public schools (elementary/high): You must give money, or you will doom children to being failures in life (even though there was a referendum just a couple years ago).
Entertainment: You must give money, we're bored (a Coliseum that put the town in the red by several million dollars).
Fire Protection: Ugghh..Why do we need a new fire stuff (two new firehouses are needed in town)?
Police Protection: Fuck you, pigs. We have enough revenue generators already. We're NOT a police state (Police Department is 20 people short, and still bleeding people out through retirement).

Sorry, I'm a little bent out of shape with tax stuffs around this area. If you want to lower expenditures, people will still bitch.

Cut out some of the pork, and a lot of problems will be alleviated. Some pork is needed, not all of it.

[smileyeagle1021]

Kinda OT, but on the school isue, the one thing that pisses me off about the UEA in Utah is they keep telling us we should pay more taxes to increase funding for schools... I always wonder why? I mean we are already etremely competitive on the nationwide testing, we still have extra-curriculars, I'll agree teachers should get paid more, I won't argue that point, but they say that despite all that Utah's children are being harmed by us not spending more money... um, no they're obviously not, look at the test scores and how many go onto complete college, I'd think that we should be celebrating getting it right without spending huge amounts of money /rant

back on topic, Oh I despise the people who think we should get everything but don't want to pay taxes... ie, "we need to repave 80" ... ok we can pay for that with a 0.625% sales tax increase (really the total proposed sales tax increase was .25%, but 1/4 was to go to repairing the aging freeways) and people bitched without end... I sat there doing the math, for every 100 I spend I will pay 25 cents and this will repair all the aging bridges, build 70 new miles of rail, and help modernize UTA's aging bus fleet... seems fair... the tax did pass with only about 70% support (which is still a lot, but you'd think that would be a no brainer 100% agreement, to get so much for so little individually... personally I like the idea of paying 25 cents more as to not get killed by a collapsing bridge).

[Boozy]

The Iraq war is costing the US nearly $1 billion dollars per day, and the Bush administration has decided that it's an appropriate time to cut taxes.

This is the bitter end to which the anti-tax mentality leads.

As a Canadian, I waver between pointing and laughing at my neighbours, feeling sympathetic towards its better citizenry, and praying that the impending US financial collapse doesn't drag the world markets down with it.

(First person to attempt to defend the Bush tax cuts with that baloney supply-side economics argument gets smacked with a wet salmon. :D)

[Greenday]

What about school taxes going towards college kids? I don't see a single cent from state aid (which, even though I go to a state school, I AM out of state), and absolutely nothing from federal aid. A small raise in taxes could help a lot of college goers who can't really afford it. Not going to happen though since people care about that extra few cents they have to spend when they go out.

[Zyanya]

My biggest problem with taxes isn't that I don't want to fund some of these vital systems.

My problem is that the government already takes out more than enough taxes to fund these vital systems, they just spend it on various fucktardary waste projects to keep their friends happy. Like, oh, bailing out various companies time and time again. Or there is that one silly war.

[protege]

Entertainment: You must give money, we're bored (a Coliseum that put the town in the red by several million dollars).

Well put. We just paid for two stadiums here in Pittsburgh. Did I mention how much the Pirates suck ass? Now it's rumored they want *another* stadium. Why? Because of the open side, where you can see downtown, they're claiming that too many people don't watch the game :confused: Here's a thought--instead of forcing us to bend over *again* (we've already been forced to pay for stadiums for the Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins)...why not use the cash to, oh, I don't know...get players that don't suck?

Speaking of those idiots downtown, the wage tax is 3%...out in the 'burbs, it's only 1% or less. Because of that, quite a few people have moved outside the city limits. Our administrators then had to raise taxes again--to cover their salaries, and to pay for things like roads we don't need (the Southern Beltway, which is *still* unplanned exactly where it's to go), or the new subway extension (supposedly costing up to a billion...) running to the new stadiums.

What's happening now, is that the city of Pittsburgh is having serious cashflow problems. For years, they pissed away millions of taxpayer cash on assorted (and usually misguided) projects. Eventually, taxpayers said "enough is enough" and moved out to the 'burbs. That's why the city's population is declining, but many of the 'burbs, especially to the north, are seeing growth!

Instead of raising taxes again, they should be trying to cut spending--getting rid of duplicate services would help. But since that makes sense, it's not allowed...

[Greenday]

How about PA in general putting tons of money towards road projects and then it just sits there with no work going on? Where the heck is all this money going!? It seems like the PA turnpike is always under construction, but absolutely NOTHING is getting done. So if the money isn't actually being spent on the roads, who is receiving the money?

[Dreamstalker]

Or the Big Dig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_%28Boston%2C_Massachusetts%29) in Boston? Even after completion, they're still finding issues (leaks, the falling ceiling panel, bad concrete in the Zakim Bridge, shoddy work overall etc). I have a feeling a lot of pockets were being lined. Yes, it eases congestion through the city, but it cost way too much and took way too long.

[AFPheonix]

I'm somewhat torn on the stadium thing, because while it is for entertainment, they also bring revenue into the downtown area after completion by luring people in for games. I do think more burden for building those needs to go on the team owners, though. We had some kerfuffle over that with facilities for the Blazers a few years back. I think it got voted down.
The Rose Garden is a nice facility though, much nicer than the old Coluseum, and it adds to our skyline and provides jobs, some prestige, and a place for other events to be held too.
I will agree on the "think of the children" knee jerk crap, too. We had a measure the election before last where they tried to get a universal health care plan for kids, although a good and noble thing, but they wanted to pay for it through additional cigarette taxes and some other ephemeral funding. While I agreed with the idea in spirit, I didn't like the execution so I and the majority of the voters turned it down. The ads for it though were your standard mush featuring kids going through chemo and whatnot. Of COURSE President Bush pointed at the failed measure in a speech to show that people don't want Universal Health Care. :mad:

No jackass, we'd love to have it, we just want it funded appropriately.

[smileyeagle1021]

I think Utah can be crowned victorious with political bull crap related to taxes... we are building a soccer stadium with tax dollars (yes a soccer stadium)... because private enterprise can't afford such a large capital investment (bull crap)... but it gets better, it was originally proposed to go in downtown Salt Lake City, at that time the legislature refused to provide the money because it was an unsound investment (yeah, a Soccer Stadium in downtown next to the 2 largest hotels in the city and a block and a half away from a TRAX stop is a really bad investment)... a few years later a request was made for the exact same stadium, except for this time it would be in a much more conservative suburb, Sandy, the legislature likes Sandy, because Sandy is full of republican sheeple, so they approved it... oh yeah they also approved the necassary street widening (not necassary for the downton location), approved a new trax station (once again not necassary for downtown), approved the infrastructure approvements (if you guessed not really necassary in downtown, you get a cookie) and then they were surprised when most people in the county didn't want it... umm hello, we don't want to spend that much money on a team that can't fill a rented stadium up at the U...
Oh and the best part, the (then) mayor of SLC proposed that the stadium be built by the Utah Fairgrounds, it already had the utilitites, the roads, a TRAX line needed to be built out that direction anyway (though in fairness, the stop they built for the Sandy location needed to be built also) and would be closer to the airport so more likely to bring in tourists and as an added benefit it would pump money into a part of Salt Lake that is in need of economic revival... the legislature's answer, coded- we do not want a location in an area like that because of safety concerns, many patrons would not be willing to go to the stadium, we are much better going with Sandy which has already addressed the safety issue, decoded- there's no way in hell we are giving anything to a city who's mayor is or has ever been Rocky Anderson.

[MadMike]

Well put. We just paid for two stadiums here in Pittsburgh.

And that's another issue I have with taxes. Too often, they're being used inappropriately. I have no problem contributing to things that the public uses, like roads, schools, etc. But why should I have to give up some of my hard-earned money so that some spoiled, rich, sports team owners can have a stadium given to them? Or for a pay raise for a bunch of lazy, do-nothing legislators?

I still remember and interesting sequence of events back in the mid to late 90s.

1995 -- the legislators vote themselves a huge pay raise in the middle of the night. The public gets pissed, but nothing happens.

1996 -- the governor decides that even though there was enough money for pay raises, we were so broke that we needed to increase the tax on gasoline. But it was an election year for legislators, so no one would support it.

1997-- Said tax increase passes, despite the public outcry against it. Sure it was only 3.5 cents, but lets face it -- no politician is worth 3.5 cents. It was supposed to be to fix our crappy roads, but over a decade later, our roads still suck.

1999 (I think) -- Now the governor wants to give our piss our money away on stadiums. Again, there's a huge public outcry against it, but the will of the people means nothing, except maybe in an election year.

So in the end, we have crappy roads, but a bunch of nice new stadiums. Talk about priorities being out of whack. I know that sometimes taxes will need to be increased, but that should be a last resort, after cutting out things that aren't needed. I don't like taxes, but what I really despise is politicians.

[CancelMyService]

Oh man, my favorite misconception again.......

The stadiums in Pittsburgh were *not* built with tax money, nor were taxes raised to build them. The public part of the funding came from the RAD money that is collected with the 1% extra sales tax in Allegheny County. 25% of that 1% goes to the county, another 25% goes back to the municipalities, and the other 50% goes to fund libraries/zoos/museums, and yes, the ballparks.

From Wikipedia:


For 2008, the District adopted an $83.4 million budget; about 31% of the funding went to libraries, 30% to parks, trails and other green spaces, 17% to the stadiums and arena, 11% to special facilities (Zoo, Aviary, Phipps Conservatory,and Convention Center), and 10% to art and cultural organizations. Less than 1% was budgeted for administration.


So the stadiums get a fraction of the 1% earmarked before they were built and STILL to this day there are so many people who think that they were built with our tax money and the 1% extra tax we pay only goes to them. That constant misconception is pretty much solely the fault of the anti tax hysterics who spread all kinds of FUD when the plans to build new stadiums were making the rounds.

Of course those same people would have cried oceans of tears had the Pirates or especially the Steelers had told the city to GFY and leave.

[MadMike]

The stadiums in Pittsburgh were *not* built with tax money, nor were taxes raised to build them. The public part of the funding came from the RAD money that is collected with the 1% extra sales tax in Allegheny County. 25% of that 1% goes to the county, another 25% goes back to the municipalities, and the other 50% goes to fund libraries/zoos/museums, and yes, the ballparks.



Sounds like it's still from tax dollars to me, even if it is a small percentage. No offense, but what you just said sounds like the typical double-talk one might hear from our elected officials.

Of course those same people would have cried oceans of tears had the Pirates or especially the Steelers had told the city to GFY and leave.

Personally, I'd tell them not to let the door hit their ass on the way out. Admittedly, I'm not a sports fan, but even if I was, I don't think that's something that the taxpayers should have to support.

[CancelMyService]

Sounds like it's still from tax dollars to me, even if it is a small percentage. No offense, but what you just said sounds like the typical double-talk one might hear from our elected officials.


Basically its a case of using money from a fund that was already in place (that yes, did come from taxes) rather than instituting a new tax just for the stadiums.

It may sound like splitting hairs, but the anti tax people did a very good job convincing people that the 1% extra tax came into existing *because* of the stadiums, when the opposite is true.

And honestly, while non sports fans are always quick with the "bah, let 'em leave" response, local sports teams bring in a HUGE amount of money. When you're talking a town the size of Pittsburgh with a fanbase as large and crazed as Steeler fans, you're talking about serious income to the city.

[protege]

Sounds like it's still from tax dollars to me, even if it is a small percentage. No offense, but what you just said sounds like the typical double-talk one might hear from our elected officials.

That's how I see it too. I don't care if it was from money they already had--it's *still* tax dollars, and still came out of *my* pocket in one way or another. Also, if it didn't cause the sales tax rate to go up, it's still an odd instance of timing :rolleyes:

Personally, I'd tell them not to let the door hit their ass on the way out. Admittedly, I'm not a sports fan, but even if I was, I don't think that's something that the taxpayers should have to support.

Exactly. Why should I be supporting a spoiled sports franchise? Those idiots have millions. They want a stadium, *they* should be supporting it. Oh, and BTW, we still haven't paid for the *last* stadium either. Yep, we're still paying on the debt incurred to build Three Rivers way back in 1970!

The reason why people are pissed about the stadiums, is that our government *ignored* us over it. There was an election to decide on the issue. The people voted it down...and the city and state ignored us, and did it anyway. *That* is why people are pissed, and why our county government was shaken up shortly afterwards.

Now the city's having financial problems--they've already cut back on services by shutting down schools, fire and police stations, and cut back transit routes. Gotta love it when their priorities are in order :rolleyes:

[CancelMyService]

The schools, police, fire, and transit cutbacks can be traced back to the wonderful Bush tax cuts. Again less money to states/municipalities means programs don't get funded. Also the state makes sure that Philly's transportation gets funded but PAT gets told to find its own money. That's why Onorato had to commit political suicide and implement the drink tax, he was pretty much told to go screw himself by the state.



The reason why people are pissed about the stadiums, is that our government *ignored* us over it. There was an election to decide on the issue. The people voted it down...and the city and state ignored us, and did it anyway. *That* is why people are pissed, and why our county government was shaken up shortly afterwards.



What happened was the original plan was to raise taxes to pay for the stadiums, which was voted down. Then Plan B was to use existing revenues to pay for them. The anti tax zealots (and when I say that I primarily mean the right wing Rush wannabes on KDKA AM) then went around telling people that the government went around and raised their taxes anyway when they didn't, and it's something that most people in this area believe to this day.

When you come down to it, if the stadiums were never built the money would have went to the zoo or the museums or something of that nature instead. You can definitely make a case that it would have been a better use, but its not as if the money wouldn't still be collected.

Also, people in Pittsburgh have to realize that we're not New York or Chicago. Aside from the significant economic impact. a lot of our identity as a city comes from our sports teams, and the impact of one or both of them leaving would have been devastating. It would have made Pittsburgh seem like a minor league town instead of a major city capable of supporting professional sports, and those are the things companies look at when deciding where to locate their buisnesses. Perception is reality. If we come off as minor league, we won't attract the big time interests. The Steelers alone usually have 3-4 games on national prime time television and that gives the city more publicity than any advertising campaign the city council could think of.

[MadMike]

What happened was the original plan was to raise taxes to pay for the stadiums, which was voted down. Then Plan B was to use existing revenues to pay for them.

...which doesn't change the fact that tax money was used to pay for stadiums, which is what the people objected to. Isn't it supposed to be "Power of the People?" Well, the people didn't want it, so it shouldn't have happened. But these days, it seems to be "Power of the Rich People, and the rest can go fuck themselves."

If I go broke, I'm told I'm not living within my means. If the government goes broke, they simply raise taxes, like the taxpayers are some sort of ATM that never runs out of money.

[CancelMyService]

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you in principle, it just bothers me that the people who were mad about the new stadiums had to lie about it in order to rile up the folks when it wasn't needed.

[machinest]

One thing I have always heard about sports stadiums (several studies ) is that they do not bring new money into an area they just redirect money from other entertainment spending restaurants ,entertainment parks theaters and movie houses to there own pockets.

[Boozy]

That doesn't seem right to me. The professional sports teams in Toronto, a city that neighbours mine, draws people in from a huge radius. I've driven an hour into Toronto for many baseball games, but I wouldn't drive for an hour to go to a restaurant or movie theatre. I can do that in my home city.

The hockey lockout in 2004-2005 nearly crippled the entire city. Of course, Canadians didn't really have any desire to live that year anyway. :p

[AFPheonix]

You'd think they'd bring money TO local restaurants and hoteliers rather than take it from them. People want to eat something other than nasty hot dogs and watered down beer. I know whenever we go into town to watch a Timbers game or Women's World Cup matches in Portland we'd usually visit a local eatery or pub before the game.