Michael Hohmann wrote;
> First of all the sales tax represents a regressive tax that overly
> impacts lower-income consumers, many of whom don't even own a car
> or drive. Secondly, and most importantly, those that use the
> roadways should pay to maintain and enhance them.
List Manager wrote:
> A general debate on this tax ... is not germane. However, if there
> are local factors - such as Minneapolitans not using the roads as much as
> suburbanites, and therefore they should opt out, or that we pay higher
> property taxes so a property tax hike would hurt us more - those are ok.
With the above in mind, I will attempt to make this topic germane to
this forum. The Metro Council has several maps that detail the
location of homes of people on MFIP (welfare). Minneapolis and St.
Paul have a disproportionate number of such homes. Also, of interest,
is the fact that only 25% of Mpls residents on MFIP assistance have
cars. The maps can be found at
http://www.metrocouncil.org/planning/jobaccess.htm. (Thanks to Carol
Becker for posting this link back in late January). In my mind, a
metro-wide sales tax increase is clearly not in the best interests of
the low-income residents of Minneapolis because such an increase would
have a greater affect on Minneapolis (and St. Paul) because we have
more MFIP recipients than other cities. Also, I agree with Michael
Hohmann's contention that the users of the roadways should be the
payers. To me, the sales tax increase would be unfair because so few
of the MFIP recipients own cars.
Scott McGerik
Hawthorne
Minneapolis
http://www.visi.com/~scottlm/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
