Sunday, January 25, 2015
Not all Republicans are butt-stupid
Try as they might to keep feeding red meat to a mindless howling mob moving at the direction of its wealthy shepherds, sometimes they have to actually do what is right. A few of the Republican governors are facing the reality that they can only impose so much failure on their states and now must increase taxes to maintain a functioning state.
Republican governors across the nation are proposing tax increases — and backing off pledges to cut taxes — as they strike a decidedly un-Republican pose in the face of budget shortfalls and pent-up demands from constituents after years of budget cuts.True that many of the tax increases are regressive and add further abuse to those least able to carry it, some few of the Republican overlords do see the hazard of the anarchy that will follow total defunding of government. And they are doing so at the beginning of their terms, counting on that paragon of short attention span, the voter, to forget by the next election.
“My jaw dropped,” Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, a conservative Republican in Nevada, said after hearing Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, propose a $1.1 billion tax increase for education this month. “Whether we kill it by five votes or 15 votes or 25 votes, we are going to kill it.”
At least eight Republican governors have ventured into this once forbidden territory: There are proposals for raising the sales tax in Michigan, a tax on e-cigarettes in Utah, and gas taxes in South Carolina and South Dakota, to name a few. In Arizona, the new Republican governor has put off, in the face of a $1 billion budget shortfall, a campaign promise to eliminate the unpopular income tax there.
“It’s not based on partisanship; it’s based on common sense and good government,” said Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican who has urged voters to support a ballot measure that would raise $1.9 billion by increasing the sales tax and gas tax. “We’ve been underinvesting in Michigan for some time, so I view it as a way to, long term, save us resources.”
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