--- "Tifft, Dennis S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ... The idea of > raising the sales tax is an interesting idea and is worth taking a > look at, not sure if I could support that at this moment. Overall, we > need to take a look at the overall budget and decide what vital works > is > important. For vital works we need police, fire protection, clean > streets, parks, etc. The questions is what our we willing to pay for.
[TB] Generally I don't like the idea of dedicated taxes. In this case its a proposal to impose a new tax because the Mayor and Council don't have the political guts to use the taxing authority that the city already has to pay for what are generally considered to be needed services. The folks over at City Hall figure we'll notice an increase in our property tax, but that my co-workers and I won't notice an increase in the sales tax on lunch (which is already 10%, 6 1/2% of the state, 1/2% city wide sales tax and the bonus 3% tax because we happen to work downtown and the city thinks we should chip in extra to pay for the Convention Center). The choice that our city leaders should be making is what services we should provide at what cost, not how we should have people pay for those services that they are least likely to notice. Problem may be that everyone at City Hall knows Walter Mondale and knows what happened to him when he said that a tax increase was necessary. Walter Mondale had the guts to tell the truth, a trait not found in some of our local office holders. Terrell Brown Loring Park 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
