A bunch of people have said that they don't like the additional sales tax for two reasons:
1. It will drive more shopping out of the city and 2. It's another regressive tax. #2 seems like a real concern, but the city may have been boxed into this --- hasn't the state taken away a lot of our taxation powers? We're going to have to go begging to the legislature for the right to do even this, and they're almost certainly NOT going to let us do this on property tax, which is the only halfway progressive (in the sense of "you have more, you pay more") alternative. I wonder if #1 is a real concern. I'm a big city booster, but I already do all of my big box and department store shopping outside the city. I'm sorry, I want to boost the city's revenue, but I *don't* particularly want to pay a pound of flesh to some parking lot owner. Is it just me, or doesn't Mpls seem to have a lot less public, city-owned parking than comparable-sized cities? This means that the extra tax burden will be borne mostly by people who are working downtown (e.g., at the Target office bldg), and for whom the added convenience will overwhelm the added cost; or by people who have no alternatives, bringing us back to point #1... -- Robert P. Goldman ECCO [EMAIL PROTECTED] REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
