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Tax reform

Michigan’s in an economic funk. Manufacturing jobs are leaving, and unemployment is at 7.6%, the highest in the nation. Actually, the state’s been in a funk since 2003, when Governor Jennifer Granholm asked citizens to “give us five years” to fix the state’s economic problems, and “you’ll be blown away.”

Do you think she meant it in the other sense?

While it’s naïve to think that a government is directly responsible for reducing unemployment or commerce, Governor Granholm and the state legislature are responsible for creating a suitable business climate. In the 2007 report “Rich States, Poor States,” economists Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore rank Michigan:

-28th in corporate taxation

-43rd in net migration

-34th in recent tax increases

-38th in minimum wage rates.

On top of all that, unions’ long dominance of Michigan’s heavy industry means that it’s not a right-to-work state. So firms must compete with or succumb to inflated union wages, and workers have to contend with union dues and the high natural unemployment that accompanies a unionized work force.

All these ingredients form a fine recipe for commercial malaise, and only more economic freedom can fix the problem. Michigan legislators need to remember that far-off outsourcing is not the only difficulty to worry about. With state rankings as rank as this, business can find a better area to sell and produce just a state away.

How does your state rank? Read this great report here.

Our friends at The Tax Foundation have  published a blog post with this equation for local property tax rates:

Local Property Tax Burden = Level of Local Government Services X Cost Per Unit of Local Government Services X Local Share of Financing Local Government Services X Share of Local Revenue that comes from property taxes

Quite simply, local government revenue is determined by the amount of money that is coming in through various taxes, and, as the Tax Foundation's Senior Economist, Gerald Prante, has stated here , "Property tax cuts are no free lunch."  Unless wasteful spending is reduced, local property tax cuts, offset by other tax increases, do not constitute a reduction in the tax burden.

As highlighted in this article published yesterday by the Associated Press, "Cash-strapped states resort to odd taxes."  This trend also applies to any local government.  

Nate Bailey, the Tax Foundation's Manager of Media Relations says, "People at the local level already feel overtaxed and politicians, in a somewhat spineless way, look for a hidden way to increase revenue without raising taxes." 

The idea is that local or state governments feel less wary raising taxes so long as an increase is not called a "tax."  Fees, lotteries, tolls, or any other regulation aimed at increasing government revenue out of citizens' pockets is a tax pure and simple.

The next time your local government debuts a generous property "tax cut," do some research in order to follow the money.  Keep the Tax Foundation's principle that no real cut comes without a reduction in spending.  Don't let tax-hikers hide old property tax rates under the guise of new and increasingly imaginative "fees" and penalties.

This week, Careerbuilder.com published an article entitled "Earn More Pay Working Fewer Hours."  The article highlights 32 careers that allow one to earn more than the average American income of $37,000 per year, while simultaneously working less than the American average of 40 hours per week.  

A cursory review of the highlighted occupations reveals that half are either government jobs or jobs that are heavily subsidized by government (careerbuilder does not supply this information, but it can be easily deduced from the job titles-- see if you can pinpoint these 16 here).  While an argument could be made that some of these occupations, through educational attainment or otherwise, are entitled to their well-above average hourly rate, at least a few warrant scrutiny, particularly where actual contributions are difficult to measure.

This is particularly true of our public educational system, which houses American's highest, sub-40-hour work-week earners.  University professors average $61 per hour, while enjoying 38 hour work weeks (Law Profs top the list at $66 per hour).  Meanwhile, the average school counselor bring in $29.15 per hour, with school psychologists even higher at $37.64 per hour. 

We all know where the money that pays these high rates comes from, right?  So, are such high hourly rates warranted?  Should these professionals work more hours for their high salaries?  Do we have enough information to answer that question?  Is such information available?  Should it be? 

Indiana has a property tax crisis on its hands.

The combination of a broken system and ever-increasing government spending has caused property tax bills across the state to skyrocket in the last year—from 30 to 50 percent, or higher.

In fact, it was Indiana’s growing property tax burden that led Sammy winner Melyssa Donaghy to stage numerous Tea Party protests across the state.

Thankfully, other citizens are fighting back as well. Hoosiers for Fair Taxation—a citizens group that Donaghy is associated with—has been joined by numerous taxpayers and homeowners to speak out against this issue. They’re calling for the property tax to be repealed completely with an amendment to the Indiana Constitution.

On January 3, a group of activists braved frigid temperatures to hold a candlelight vigil at a property tax repeal hearing. On January 10, activists gathered together in Indianapolis for a tax forum, where they discussed the possibilities for property tax reform. And this Tuesday, January 15, even more activists came to the Indiana Statehouse to listen to Governor Mitch Daniels’s State of the State speech—and to protest loudly when his calls for property tax reform weren’t enough.

Stay tuned—this fight isn’t over yet.

Doing a bit of surfin' on Amazon today I noticed that they've recruited four characters from one of my favorite TV shows to demonstrate the different sorts of American taxpayer.

That's right, you can now figure out whether you're more like Pam Beasly, Dwight Schrute, Ryan whatever-his-last-name-is, and Jim Halpert when it comes time to do that most joyous of tasks: Filing your taxes.

Of course the point is to sell you tax prep software, but I'm just happy to see that I can include 'The Office' characters in a blog post. Check it out here, and see which filer you're more like. I'm most like Ryan: a "Typical Taxpayer." 

I’ve written about the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association before, and today I ran across a great op-ed, written by Jon Coupal, the group’s president.

The piece ran in the California Republic, and it discussed some of the work the HJTA is doing to “provide hope in a tax-happy state.”

Here’s an excerpt:

“People ask why we bother to fight government waste and the misuse of taxpayer dollars. It seems that the triple threat of out-of-control government spending, tax increases and government debt—in all its myriad forms—are so daunting that it is scarcely worth the effort.

 

“In many ways, our work is like fighting an invasion of ants in the kitchen. With diligence, you can kill hundreds of them, yet hundreds still remain. You battle the ants knowing that you won't destroy all the ants in one fell swoop, but every one you get reduces the threat to your health and food supply.

 

“The same basic principle holds true as we jointly released our fifth annual California Piglet Book last week. This 35-page booklet carefully scrutinizes dozens of examples of waste, fraud, and abuse that occurred in California state and local government. By increasing transparency and continuing to shine a spotlight on the twisted maze of government bureaucracy, we can end some abuses and build pressure for reforms that will guarantee taxpayer dollars will be better spent in the future.”

 

Read the whole thing here.

Speaking of tricks and treats, this is definitely a trick:  Iowa’s Department of Revenue has now made Halloween jack-o-lanterns subject to the state sales tax because they’re used as decorative items, rather than food.

“We made the change because we wanted the sales tax law to match what we thought the predominant use was,” said spokeswoman Renee Mulvey.

Oh, please. It’s pretty clear that the Iowa government just wanted to get their hands on another $1.4 million—the amount of sales generated by the 839 acres of pumpkin harvests in Iowa in 2000 (the last year statistics were available).

Anyway, rest assured, the Department of Revenue also has a solution for those people who actually do purchase pumpkins for eating. In their infinite bureaucratic wisdom, they have provided "Iowa Sales Tax Exemption Certificates" for just such occasions.

I have a feeling Iowans aren’t so happy about Halloween this year. Read more here.

I know Richard will be posting his video tomorrow along with pictures, but here's what the UofChicago College Republicans filmed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzgCS0xY2iY

Today, a few members of the Sam staff (including myself) attended a Chicago-style Tea Party, where citizens gathered to pour bottled water into the river in protest of a proposed 10-cent tax on bottled water—not to mention high taxes in general.

We even got a few interviews on video—check back here tomorrow to see it.

That's what Jo Egelhoff of Appleton, WI did about 10 years ago, and to this day taxpayers are being protected from arbitrary, unaccountable tax increases.

Jo--whom I met at the Americans for Prosperity summit in Washington, D.C. earlier this month--runs FoxPolitics.net, a popular blog that tracks political developments in the Fox River Valley, where Jo lives, and elsewhere.

Jo wrote recently about her experience getting taxpayer protection in the law:

Wisconsin doesn’t allow statewide, citizen-initiated referendums. But statutes do allow – and are very specific about – a group of citizens to petition their city or village via direct legislation. And that’s just what I and a couple of stalwart taxpayer advocates did in 1996.

Check out more on her blog. I'll be following up with her about this later.

And be sure to also read her account of yesterday's taxpayers' rally in Madison. Apparently a union mob showed up to yell and swear at the taxpayers. A starker contrast could not be drawn.

We do some thinking over here at Sam Adams, but not as much as they do at IPI, Illinois's free-market think tank, which celebrated its fifth birthday last month.

The Illinois Policy Institute's mission is to develop policies that advance the cause of free enterprise and limited government. They're currently developing policies for school choice, health care and tax reform. It may sound pretty dull here, but the work that they're doing is extremely important.

Sam Adams Alliance board member and IPI chairman and CEO John Tillman spoke at the anniversary luncheon last month, where he mused about IPI's past and future. (He also mentioned Sam!)

Check out the video below, and be sure to visit IPI's YouTube channel to see the other remarks at the luncheon, including a talk by the world-famous Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. 

It's been a busy day in the blogosphere - find out what people are talking about in this wrap-up of the day's news.

In Wisconsin, it looks like would-be citizen watchdogs are going to have to pay money to access court documents that used to be free to the public. 

According to a Media Matters study, Oklahoma opinion pages are dominated by conservatives. At the same time, a study that's not paid for by the same folks who pay for MoveOn.org, the unbiased The Gallup Poll, says that Republicans remain deeply distrustful of the media.

The housing marketing in Oregon is a mess - and it's no wonder. After all, tax subsidies to the tune of $53 million were pumped into the area, leaving owners with homes worth $800,000 with property tax bills of less than $200.

Kids aren't making it to school in St. Louis, Missouri - that's because the bus drivers are on strike for the second day in a row.  

In California, the leader of the California Assembly, Speaker Fabian Nuñez, is under scrutiny for spending campaign funds on extravagant trips, shopping, and dining.

It's school district referendum seasons - the education unions are out in full force again this year, reminding voters that the only solution to all of the public education problems is more money. Freedom Dogs in Minnesota reminds voting taxpayers to not to roll over, and has signs for those who live in District 281.  

The Framer is thinking about running for a legislative seat in Arizona - he shares some campaign signage tips he's picked up with his readers.

Speaking of campaign tips, Michigan taxpayers are angry about the recent tax hikes and this site explains how to run a recall. 

 

It looks like Leon Drolet and the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance aren’t the only ones fighting Governor Granholm’s tax hikes.

The Taxpayer United Michigan Foundation is planning to respond with a lawsuit, on the grounds that Granholm violated Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, Open Meetings Act, and Headlee Tax Limitation Amendment, which guarantees citizens the right to vote on any state income or sales tax hikes.

Watch out, Jenny. Michigan taxpayers are fed up.

When restricted to a fox-hole-prayer situation where preventing Britney Spears from dancing at awards shows ever again seems easier than discerning a sound solution to your budgetary crisis, logic disappears quicker than glazed donuts in Ted Kennedy's office. Yet, the supposed solution merely falls victim to the irrational fog of appearance - what seems to be.

Yesterday, Kristin brought to our attention the exemplar, flawed logic of Michigan politicians as they "successfully" disentangled the budget crisis. The logical blunder in Michigan is not a first. Recall last year's New Jersey government shutdown as politicians dealt with its own budgetary crisis; their solution...increased state spending by 9.2%, mass tax increases, and greater acquisition of funds through borrowing (more indebt). Now that a year has passed, what have the sagacious Corzine's budgetary fear-mongering and lack of logic accomplished? New Jersey began the budgetary year $2 billion in the hole along with allocations for new state spending projects like a $200,000 diesel-powered electric generator in West Deptford.

The blatant inconsistency in the logic of these politicians manifests itself when analyzing the budgetary trends prior to crisis. As Americans for Tax Reform affirmed, the unchecked, unwise growth of government, taxation, and budgetary mismanagement in New Jersey serves as the culprit for crisis. Just think about it; New Jersey had enacted $8.7 billion in tax increases since 2002, had acquired state-income-tax revenue at 12% increases annually, and had "raised taxes more than any other state". So, logically, Governor Corzine finds the budgetary answer by merely feeding the beast.

You'd think the Michigan officials might consider the palpable data in states like New Jersey and others where fellow politicians have made such logical errors and bore the consequences of catalyzing their radioactive, fiscal compounds. Just look at the corresponding graph; under the leadership of Granholm, taxes have been substantially on the rise in Michigan for the past years. Coupled with the Tax Foundation's consideration of cost to consumers dealing with dramatically high business taxes, the state's current tax burden on its citizenry comes in at 11.2% (as high as 1983). The cited editorial states the obvious: "Trying to keep pace by raising taxes to meet expenses is a losing game. There's no way taxpayers can keep up."

The applause heard coming from Granholm's office yesterday boasts vanity and ignorance; I believe Monty Python performed a skit that clearly demonstrates the platform of many elected officials like Granholm. Sadly, politicians fall victim to what seems the quickest out and in turn, exhibit, as Fyoder Dostoyevsky beautifully phrased, that "Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his sense only to justify his logic." Instead of abstract budgetary solutions through elaborate and encumbering tax schemes along with uncontrollable systems favoring pork and nanny projects, maybe politicians should execute some political prudence through simple, fiscal restraint.

A while back, I featured Modern-Day Sam Adams Susan Kniep for her efforts to defend Connecticut taxpayers as the president of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations.

I’m not the only one who’s taken notice of her hard work, either—on September 11, Kniep won the Republican primary for the East Hartford mayoral race.

Kniep, a former mayor, says in a letter to citizens, “This election is not about party politics. It is about you, the residents and taxpayers of our town. It is about money. Your money! It is about improving the quality of life for all of us by allowing us to keep more of our money while giving government less and improving the management of our town.”

Here’s to Susan Kniep! Stay tuned for updates.

Why are politicians always talking about mustering up the votes for a tax increase instead of searching for why all the money that we give them already isn't enough?

In Sam's (new) hometown of Chicago, Cook County Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy has proposed increasing the county's sales tax from 9 to 10 percent. "We just need to do something other than cut jobs if we want to maintain services to our residents," Commissioner Murphy said in a ABC 7 report. Apparently, Murphy believes that raising taxes is the only way not to have a budget crisis next year. Never mind the ever-present crisis of government spending more than it takes in...oh, wait, that's not a crisis per se anymore; it's reality.

Spending Murphy went on: "Cook County is a destination place. We have great conventions and conferences here. The sales tax is going up 2 ¾ percent. That's not a back-breaking increase."

Oh yeah, the cost of doing business in Chicago has nothing to do with people actually coming here to do business. So yeah, let's make it more expensive--that'll do wonders.

And where do the tax increases stop? Once the government gets its hands on that much more revenue, the county commission will have license to increase spending above and beyond, triggering another so-called "crisis" the next time around. It's a never-ending cycle of increasing the non-market driven services that always seem to go way over budget.

The politicians said they would fix it, but they didn't. That's why Maine residents today filed an initiative to provide tax relief in an overtaxed and overspent state.

Portland attorney David Crocker today filed a petition with Maine's secretary of state to get "An Act to Provide Tax Relief" on the ballot next year. The plan was devised by the Maine Heritage Policy Center.

The AP reports:

The proposal would limit state spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth over a three-year average, but there could not be a decrease in spending. It would limit municipal and county spending to the increase in personal income growth, capped at 2.7 percent, plus the growth of new property on the tax rolls. The legislation does not address school spending; proponents say the newly enacted school reorganization plan already accomplishes that.

Long-time citizen leader Mary Adams weighed in on the petition:

"I think a lot of people figure (legislators) had their chance, they didn´t take it and now the citizens will help them out by pointing the way with this legislation," Adams said. 

Good job, Mainers! 

There just might be something to Joseph’s theory about the University of Michigan’s devastating start to the season. (He satirized that the state’s economic woes were to blame for the Wolverines’ loss to the Mountaineers.) The winningest program in college football history defeated first by Appalachian State, and now Oregon? What’s going on?!

Things just keep getting worse, and not just for Wolverine fans. Matt posted earlier today about tax increase talks and the need for reducing Michigan legislators’ salaries, and I just read that lawmakers are still debating solutions to the budget crisis, which if left unresolved will lead to at least a partial government shutdown in three weeks.

It’s going to be a long season, for Michigan fans and taxpayers alike.

Chula Vista resident Larry Breitfelder is tired of his city’s budget problems. So, he decided to do something about it.

After learning of Chula Vista’s budgetary woes, including a $396 million infrastructure backlog, he decided to form a taxpayers association “dedicated to promoting cost-effective, efficient government and opposing unnecessary new taxes and fees.”

This is the kind of thing we like to see—citizens taking action when they don’t like how their elected officials are conducting business, particularly when it comes to the tax dollars they’re providing.

Here’s to Larry Breitfelder and the Chula Vista Taxpayers Association!

 

ANN ARBOR, MI - Following what many are proclaiming the greatest upset in collegiate football history, Wolverine Coach Lloyd Carr expressed what he believed to be the primary explanation of his team's unsatisfactory performance: "With the future of our state's financial standing in doubt, my boys just can't concentrate as they hear all this stuff in the media. Our boys are tough fighters but ain't able to get focused as word reaches their ears of how our state's politicians have wasted our tax dollars, created a deficit approaching $1.8 billion, and are talkin' about taking more of our hard-earned money."

Wolverine's senior kicker, Jason Gingell, admitted to not coming through in the clutch; yet, he did not fail to also mention that right before the game, he read how his tax dollars were helping the governorship's "first-gentleman Mulhern fulfill his metrosexual needs" as Mulhern can boast the largest, gubernatorial staff in the US, which aids him with proper hygiene help, wardrobe assistance, and acquiring the latest books like "How to be Whipped in Your Political Relationship" and "Making the Most of Your Spouse's Constitutional Office".

Sadly, the independent Emergency Financial Advisory Panel's released statement didn't ease the Wolverine's trepidations either. The players felt that the panel merely spewed forth scapegoat generalizations in favor of big government even though the panel claims to have provided concrete and clear solutions to the budget problems.

Some of the panel's "highly-detailed" solutions include the following: "Michigan must reform spending and taxing. Michigan's tax and spending policies should reflect the needs of the 21st and not the 20th century" and "There is a fundamental, urgent, and compelling need to increase revenues to protect and expand essential investments. We urge policymakers to act quickly. Policymakers must solve problems, not push them to the future."

Former Governors William Milliken and James Blanchard serve as the emergency panel's bipartisan representatives; they stand for the need to solve the budget problem hand-in-hand. Wolverine quarterback Chad Henne, however, couldn't seem to have gotten the irony of the panel's representatives out of his mind during his failed two-point conversion. Henne noted the "warm" partnership and lack of partisan bickering between Milliken and Blanchard that had existed in the past.

When asked about his opponent's helplessness due to the budget dilemma, Appalachian State Coach Jerry Moore firmly answered that the only hope for the disgraced Michigan team rests in the efforts of Modern-Day-Sam Leon Drolet and his Michigan Taxpayers Alliance.

*Satirical Portrayal

Just like Chicago needs to deal with its transit problems before (possibly) hosting the Olympics, so does Massachusetts need to "cut costs first," that is, before looking at raising taxes to balance the budget.

An editorial by Beacon Hill Institute executive director David G. Tuerck--an economics professor at Suffolk University--asks citizens to consider underlying causes to Massachusetts's budget problems, and points to the labor unions directly.

Casino gambling, closing corporate loopholes, and increasing taxes on meals might or might not be good ideas. But unless we first stand up to the public employee unions, all such measures will go more toward inflating already-inflated costs than toward the genuine needs of state and local government.

The Beacon Hill Institute also has a detailed report on the Fairtax and its possible economic impacts. Suffice it to say, their conclusion is positive for Fairtax supporters like myself. Check it out.  

That's how long the Michigan legislature has to turn out a balanced budget. The Michigan Taxpayers Alliance is keeping the politicians in check and accountable to this serious constitutional obligation.

Recipients of the MTA's e-newsletter were reminded of this upcoming deadline this morning when the group's leader Leon Drolet laid out the plain and simple truth:

Governor Granholm proposed a budget way back in February that would spend about $1.8 billion more than economists believe will be received by the state Treasury in current taxes. The state House has passed several budget bills that increase this disparity to $2 billion. The state Senate has passed budget bills that spend (so far) $1.6 billion more than anticipated tax revenues.  

Apparently, the majority of politicians in Lansing see an 18% income tax increase as the solution to the economic problems in the state, but Drolet disagrees, and has a nice blurb in Crain's Detriot Business magazine.

Fed up with the heavy burden the state's property taxes place upon homeowners, thousands of Indianans gathered in Indianapolis to hold their own version of the Boston Tea Party. During the protest, residents put their tax bills into an oversized teabag and dumped it into a canal that runs through the city.

With property tax bills spiraling out of control, rising on average 24% this year, many residents claim they can no longer afford to keep their homes. Said one resident, Jim Colzani, "We hope it sparks a revolution, because if it doesn't, they will make a ghost town out of downtown and areas like this because people cannot afford to stay."

It's great to see citizens harnessing the memory of the Revolution and taking action to protest against the increasingly overbearing government. Now only if lawmakers would get the message and take steps to reduce the tax burden and clamp down on spending!

If you're in New Mexico, the Rio Grande Foundation has a cool toy for you to play with so that you can find out.

It's the Tax Friendliness Calculator, and it's available here.

For instance, if I were a non-veteran living in Albuquerque, spending $25,000 at retail stores in a year, and owning house worth $150,000 I would pay $3,548.32 in taxes per year. 

That's a pretty good chunk of change! 

In the wake of last week’s tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis it has been determined that over 70,000 bridges across the US are deficient.  Congress’ solution to the problem, raise taxes, what else?  Congress is proposing a hefty gas tax to help fund infrastructure improvements around the country.

Does Congress not understand that most of the country is already struggling to afford the price of gas?  It’s over $3.00 a gallon across the United States, and they want it to be more expensive!  People better pump up the tires on their bikes if they actually want to have some scratch in their pocket.

Luckily, President Bush opposes the proposed gas tax and instead proposes, “That members of Congress better prioritize how current tax revenues are spent before raising taxes.”  I support the President’s opposition, but the day Congress efficiently organizes the priority of their expenditures on the tax payer’s dime is the day pigs fly.

Hopefully though Congress can pull itself together and find a solution as how to improve the infrastructure across the US, so a tragedy like the one that happened last week will never happen again.  I can only hope this solution does not have to do with increasing taxes and creating more economic burden on the average American citizen.

Read more about this story here.

Anyone who follows sports (and probably many who don’t) knows what happened Tuesday night to change baseball history. (Barry Bonds hit his 756^th career home run, surpassing Hank Aaron and putting him at the top of the list of all-time home run hitters.)

However, for 21-year-old Matt Murphy, the event quickly became somewhat of a nightmare, for reasons that have nothing to do with the raging controversy over steroids.

Murphy caught the record-setting ball, but instead of celebrating this souvenir, he may be forking over more than $200,000 to the IRS—because the moment he caught the ball, it became income to him. So much income, in fact, that it put him in the highest tax bracket.

And even if he doesn’t sell the ball, he would still owe taxes based on a reasonable estimate of its value.

That, sports fans, is just plain sad.

COG is an acronym for Council of Government, which is a sub-state planning district that was first authorized by congress four decades ago. COGs were designed to help cities and towns pool their resources to improve aspects of their communities.

Well politicians in Oklahoma have found a way to turn those things they create with good intentions into something bad. In the case of COGs, they are being used by state legislatures to funnel pork barrel money to whomever and wherever they would like it. Steve Anderson of the Oklahoma Council of Political Affairs, a non-profit group that monitors government spending says, "It was just too perfect. It was the perfect case to create plausible deniability." By funneling pork through COGs, state legislatures make this taxpayer money impossible to track. This is in direct violation of how tax dollars are supposed to be spent through appropriation bills making it easy to track where the money goes. This whole practice sounds a little fishy and ILLEGAL to me!

Well, a few good politicians in the Oklahoma State Legislature have proposed a plan that would distribute this money based on a formula, not backroom wheeling and dealing. This sounds incredible as it completely removes politicians from the process of allocating tax dollars! In reference to the plan Anderson says, "[it] actually fixes the problem." Shows you what kind of politicians we have in government today when the best way to fix a problem is to take the politicians completely out of the process! If it were up to me this kind of thing would be happening a whole lot more often.

Read more about COGs in Oklahoma here.

I'm a legend within the Sam Adams Alliance HQ for my Sharpie collection. I have fine-tip and thick-tip collections, and I recently purchased proper containers to showcase my lovely markers. Whoever said money can't buy happiness never took me to the office supply store. 

As much as  I love my Sharpies, I sometimes worry that they're a bit frivolous. I mean, as a non-profit, it's important for us to be good stewards of our money, and here I am, spending like $30 bucks so I can write in pretty colors?  Couldn't that go to help eliminate government corruption? Take this email from Bob, our prez, as sent out this morning:

"FYI – when printing or copying, when possible print in black & white and don’t use color.  The color pages cost us 11 cents verses 1.2 cents for black & white. Please only use color when you need to.  The money we save is more money to use to make political change with." 

Man. I feel guilty just thinking about all of the times I printed in color when I could have used black and white.  But my sins are nothing compared to those of our friendly NASA astronauts, who don't only drink and fly, but also managed to misplace $94 million in office supplies. (Link courtesy of TierneyLab.)

$94 million dollars?! That's a lot of Sharpies and color copies. I can only imagine how Bob would react if he got an excuse like this:"This computer, although assigned to me, was being used on board the International Space Station. I was informed that it was tossed overboard to be burned up in the atmosphere when it failed."

And these lame excuses are a serious problem. Public employees should feel way more guilty than I do about my little Sharpie splurge, because all taxpayers are paying for their transgressions. And I don't think most of us feel very good to learn about our hard-earned money being thrown out of a rocket! 

No, it's not the same as being ticked (off), but it still ought to make you angry. Tax Increment Financing districts are popping up everywhere these days, and are flourishing in our home base of Chicago.

The Sam Adams crew had lunch today with Ben Joravsky, who is a columnist at the Chicago Reader, a local paper that prides itself on its reporters' independent thought and fearless journalism.

Ben has written extensively on TIFs, and how government uses them to bypass popular consent to raise taxes. Ben explained how the city will create a TIF district in a geographical area, and claim that it freezes property owners' tax rates for a certain amount of time, usually to fund a specific project. What really happens, however, is that officials can game the system, raising property values at a whim to take more of your money, and never letting the TIF expire, even when the original project is compete (if it's ever even started). That money, then, goes into a giant city slush fund that the mayor can use to fund his friends' pet projects...millions of dollars worth of 'em.

Read Ben's take on TIFs, and his specific examples of how they function within the City of Chicago's massive political machine.

I'm sure that we'll have a lot more about this abuse of taxpayer trust in the near future, so stay tuned. 

Bob forwarded me a copy of tax hero Leon Drolet's farewell speech from when he left state office in 2006 - and it's golden.

Here's a snippet:

Why do people in government hate term limits? Because they take away our job and our job as lawmakers comes with the unfair advantage we have in extending our power over others. Now, nobody in this chamber believes me. We believe we hate term limits because we lose institutional memory.  And we believe that we lose our newfound ability to work productively with each other that magically happens in our final term. We believe that Lansing used to be a better place before term limits. Well, Lansing was a better place before term limits for lawmakers because a lawmaker’s power could go on for so many more years.

Read the whole speech here. Also, read my profile on Leon here and click here to learn more about what he's up to these days.

Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin is popular - and it's not just because she's a former beauty queen.

In the land of the infamous Stevens family, this government accountability champion has sky-high approval ratings - have you ever heard of an elected official with 90% plus approval? Me either...that is, until Sarah.

She's fearless. Sarah signed a strong ethics bill into law after a fellow Republican took bribes, used her veto power to cut $237 million from the state budget, and, oh yeah, fired the entire Alaska Board of Agriculture and Conservation.

Plus, she has a superior first name. 

I'm going to add Sarah to my list of living heroines - right up there with Virginia Postrel.

Jenny Granholm, take notes.

Serving up coffee in California is a lot more complicated than creme, sugar and styrofoam cups. Sales clerks also have to make sure to ask buyers if they are taking their coffee for here or to go - because if the customer consumes the beverage in the shop, they are charged sales tax. If they take it to go, the coffee is tax-free.

ABC 7 news covers this in-depth here, and Justin Levine shares his experience here.

Quiz question: you're an administrator at a university. You are having very serious budget problems. What do you?

A: Cut unnecessary spending.
B: Start a fund-raising campaign.
C: Raise tuition.
D: Spend school money on an 11 day cruise in the Caribbean.

Well, if you work at Chicago State University, you selected D.

This isn't really anything new, but state and municipal groups are demanding that the Congress NOT set their tax policy, only to turn right back around and ask them to set it for them! What's the deal?

The federal ban on collecting taxes on Internet transactions is about to expire. That's got the pro-tax folks on both sides of the aisle in a frenzy...and also in a bit of confusion about what taxing the Internet will mean for government, local, national and in between.

Declan McCullagh at News.com writes that the pro-tax folks have at least one very good friend in the US Senate:

State and local governments have resumed a push to lobby Congress to impose sales taxes on Net shopping and to levy new monthly taxes on Internet connections...On Tuesday, Enzi introduced a bill that would usher in mandatory sales tax collection for Internet purchases.

OK, so under Enzi's plan, government would be required to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases, from books on Amazon.com to--perhaps if the pro-tax folks have their way--a tax for every e-mail or instant message that you send.

But wait, there's more!

"The independent and sovereign authority of states to develop their own revenue systems is a basic tenet of self government and our federal system," said David Quam, director of federal relations at the National Governors Association.

Ah, so I get it. States and cities want the Congress to lift the ban on Internet taxation, allowing them to levy them at the local level, while, at the same time, requiring states and cities to levy those very same taxes.

Huh?

Through all of this, nowhere in the discussion--from Republicans to Democrats--do I see a challenge to the very basic premise on which taxing Internet transactions relies: that government needs more money.

Enzi's explanation is specious and relies on that faulty premise:

"Simply put, if Congress continues to allow remote sales taxes to go uncollected and electronic commerce continues to grow as predicted, other taxes, such as income or property taxes, will have to be increased to offset the lost revenue to state and local governments. I want to avoid that," said Enzi.

Where are the people who are asking how well government spends the money that it collects currently, and whether additional money will solve the very real problems of government accountability and transparency? Where are the public records requests to find out the answers to these questions, or the people who are asking their politicians how, exactly, they intend to spend this windfall of new revenue (on the order of billions of dollars per year) from the people who are earning it?

So ask your senator to vote against the so-called "Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act." Then, let's ask those questions I've mentioned to see if we really do need a whole new part of our lives taxed.

Over at the Citizens for Responsible Spending - 834 blog, Julia Jacobson points out some contradictory statements from the area school district. On the one hand, they're telling voters that buildings are in "dire" condition in an effort to get more tax money. On the other hand, they're telling prospective students about the recent face lift the building received.

Click here for the whole thing.

CalTax, a California advocacy group, keeps a great database of state-wide tax waste, fraud and mismanagement. Click here for what's been wasted in 2007 alone, and click here for an MSAccess database that documents literally billions of dollars from 1999 - 2006.

Of the summaries posted, as a train commuter myself, this one is my fav:

Two Dedication Celebrations Cost Muni $158,000. Municipal Transportation Agency officials in San Francisco say they were justified in throwing two taxpayer-funded parties to celebrate the opening of the T-Third Metro line. Spokeswoman Maggie Lynch said one was to thank the community for putting up with five years of construction on the 5.1-mile streetcar line, and the second was to thank the politicians, bureaucrats and activists who worked to get the $648 million project built. Columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross concluded, "The most surprising thing about the Muni parties: They started on time." (Source: San Francisco Chronicle, April 22.)

For more local government-specific examples, click here. 

Michiganders held a taxpayer rally a couple of weeks ago, where they brought hundreds of teabags to give to Governor Jenny "Tax-Em-While-They're-Down" Granholm and their State "Use-Tax-Money-to-Buy-iPods-for-Every-Student" Legislature.

I may not be from the "Deer State" (as some people call Michigan), but I can appreciate a good rally for government accountability.

Americans for Prosperity has posted a nice video summary of how the rally went down. Check it out.

The Government Accounting Office reports another widespread rip-off of taxpayers due to exactly zero in the way of financial controls. Federalworkers in Washington, DC are being given free passes to ride the Metrosystem (subways and buses) to work. But many of these passes, called Metrochex, are going to people who don't use them. Instead, they sell them on Ebay, and elsewhere. Overall, the fraud is costing taxpayers millions. Click here for more.

I'm so glad it's almost five on Friday! My job is kind of awesome, but I knew this week would be a long one on Monday, when I couldn't get my tax numbers to match my other tax numbers. Ugh. Talk about getting the week started on the wrong foot!

Well, Tim Carney takes on taxes at the business level in his column and talks a bit about why they are so complicated:

There are hundreds of people...who bounce back and forth between forming laws and regulations, and then advising corporations on how to deal with the laws and regulations.

Wow - that's a profitable way to go: just write some crazy complicated laws, and then charge lots of money to show big businesses how to follow them! Read more here.

When Mike Dunmir saw legislators snickering and rolling their eyes at citizens, he decided to do something about it. Find out what steps he took in today's Common Sense .

When you think of Washington the state, what comes to mind? Thick forests filled with evergreen trees? The Space Needle? Microsoft? NASCAR? 

Wait...NASCAR?

Well, if some state officials have their way, $500 million of taxpayer dough will be spent on a race track and a basketball arena. Check out the Heartland Institute's Budget and Tax News for the whole story.

On average, you and I worked 40 days last year just to pay our taxes--this number is up from 38 days in 2005. The Tax Foundation has some sobering figures on not only how many days we work to pay for out-of-control government growth, but also how many hours and minutes per day we work for Uncle Sam and his state and local "children", according to an article on CNN/Money:

Based on an 8-hour workday, the research group estimates that Americans as a whole work:

1 hour 43 minutes to pay all federal taxes (income, sales, etc.)
1 hour 22 minutes to pay for housing and household operations
1 hour 8 minutes to pay for health and medical care
52 minutes to pay all state and local taxes (income, sales, etc.)
51 minutes to pay "other" taxes
40 minutes to pay for food
39 minutes to pay for transportation
28 minutes to pay for recreation
17 minutes to pay for clothing

FYI, that means that we're working almost half of each work day (3.5 hours) to pay various taxes. 

Do you feel better now than you did before you read this post? I thought not.

Coming from me personally, the answer to all of this indentured servitude is the FairTax.

If you use digg.com, digg this story so that more people can know just how bad it's become. 

It’s that horrible time of year—you know, when we fork over sizable chunks of our income in taxes. And, unfortunately, it’s not getting any easier to bear. Although Richard just posted that he is considering making Alaska his home because of their low tax burden, the rest of the U.S. isn’t so lucky. According to the Tax Foundation, the burden of state and local taxes is at a record high this year.

Please help us restore accountable government—then maybe April 15 won’t be such a dark day on the horizon.

When it's snowing in Chicago I sometimes forget about sunny days altogether and consider moving somewhere else--anywhere else. Most times I think of how life might be on a deserted South Pacific island, but then I get sad when I imagine life without my favorite pizza joint--Giordano's--just down the street. (I might miss my friends, too.)

At this point, I consider somewhere a bit more within the realm of civilization, where I can have social contact with something other than a toucan and still exercise some semblance of sovereignty over my own life. Alaska might come to mind now, since I figure that their low, low tax burden might be enough for me to bear the snow.

I definitely have my priorities straight, even though I've come full-circle on the snow problem. Oh, well.

Speaking of Alaska, it tops the list of the US's most Tax-Friendly States as ranked by CNN/Money. Alaskans' state and local tax burden is 6.6% of the people's income. The least tax-friendly state is Vermont, which taxes its people a whopping 14.1% of their gross income.

All of this tax talk has me wondering: Do they have a Giordano's in Alaska?

Americans for Prosperity’s Illinois division and its activists are working hard to defeat Governor Blagojevich’s not-so-brilliant plan for the largest tax hike in state history. Join the fun—you can take action to protect Illinois taxpayers, too.

Michigan's in a tough place right now, and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is apparently itching for his state to rival it in terms of job losses, a mass business exodus and various other economic nasties.

Of course, he'd never admit it, but the governor's new "gross receipts" tax increase will be the largest state-level tax increase yet this decade, raising taxes on Illinois citizens by $6 billion. It would tax all business transactions, including business-to-business sales and purchases, and, according to economists across the spectrum, would harm the economy due to its inherently flawed design.

Not content to stop there, the governor also advocating a new payroll tax that will raise the tax burden on workers by $7.1 billion in 2008.  

Read more about the Illinois tax increases and gross receipts taxes in reports by the Tax Foundation.

Maybe it's just because I'm a FairTax groupie—and we do debate these things around here—but I think that this new Flash animation ad from Americans for Fair Taxation is pretty good.

Check out FairTax Jack, then answer the question for yourself: Which do you think you'll see first in your lifetime, meaningful tax reform or a jackalope? 

We pose the hard hitting questions on this blog, I'll tell ya.

...a record-setting one.   And it's brewing right here in Illinois.   

Claiming a "moral imperative"...The governor's massive new wish list would be paid for primarily by $7 billion in new business taxes, the potential $10 billion lease of the state lottery and $16 billion in new borrowing.

Reactions have been "lukewarm" across the aisle, according to the Sun-Times--and we hear that local groups are getting together to spread the word. 

Apparently when Colorado Governor Bill Ritter says so.
 
The governor--no doubt under pressure from school union bosses--yesterday announced a plan to tax the people of Colorado an additional $84 million this year to, as he says, "pay for schools." The problem is, Colorado has this pesky little thing called a budget, enacted by the voters as the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights. Under that law, politicians may not raise taxes or abscond with the citizens' refunds without their approval.
 
Governor Ritter says that his plan is not a tax hike, but, according to the AP, Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute disagrees: 

"Let me make it very clear: That's called a tax increase. If taxes were going to go down and action is taken to prevent them from going down, that's a tax increase. Get used to it. Democrats are in control. This is the first of many." 

Yes, Governor Ritter, it's true: An $84 million tax increase by any other name is still an $84 million tax increase.