From the Center for American Progress: " ECONOMY - ALABAMA LIVES WITH ITS VOTE: Just six weeks ago, Alabama <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51143-2003Sep9?language=printer";>shot down</A> an attempt by Gov. Bob Riley to reform taxes in an attempt to stem the hemorrhaging state budget. Although the state currently has "the nation's least equitable tax system" and the new system would have eased the tax burden on the poor, shifting it to "undertaxed business interests," a hard push from the conservative right - including the Christian Coalition - scared low-income Alabamians into voting against their best interests. And now there is no money. According to the <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/20/opinion/20MON3.html";>NYT</A>, as a result, "the carnage is piling up." State agencies have been cut by 18%, while other recipients of state funds lost three-quarters of their budgets. Currently, Alabamians are losing access to AIDS medication, after-school tutoring, special-needs camps and slashing jobs such as probation officers and health investigators. And that's just the start. "Next year agencies are bracing for a 56% hit . If the state cannot find more revenue — and Governor Riley is seearching — it may be nearly impossible for basic servvices, including courts, prisons and police, to operate." " Somewhere, a disgusting monster named Grover Norquist is happily chortling to himself over the "great thing" he thinks he's accomplished. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans not sophisticated enough to understand how their misery contributes to Norquist's grand plan, are suffering as their communities crash into ruin. <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51143-2003Sep9?language=printer";>
I didn't know who Grover Norquist was until I did a search on the name after reading the above, so I can say that he had nothing to do with the reason I voted against the tax hike on 9 September and probably he had little or nothing to do with why many others voted no. (If he had been quoted with any frequency down here, I certainly would have heard of him before now.)
Without going into great detail about the specific ways money has been wasted, the main reason most people who did so voted against the Riley plan was because it would do nothing to change the process by which the tax money going to Montgomery would be spent. Most of us feel, with justification, that the main reason that things are in a mess is that certain parties down there have been wasting money, and giving them more money to waste would be like giving free crack cocaine to a junkie. And regardless of what the _New York Times_ says, many of the proposed new taxes would hit everyone, including those with low incomes. Frex, although the Riley plan said that people living in houses worth less than $52,000 would be exempt from paying property taxes, it also would change the way that property was appraised, and would make it subject to being reappraised every year, so with the normal rate of inflation it would not be long before a person living in a house that is currently valued at less than $52,000 would find his/her home valued above that. His proposal also would make the labor charges on services subject to sales tax at the same rate as the parts, thus increasing the cost for everyone every time they got their oil changed or their car repaired or their washing machine fixed, etc. Those are just a couple of examples of how it would have directly impacted even the low-income people by raising their taxes, not to mention how higher taxes on businesses, landlords, etc., would be passed right along to the property renter or the person who purchased anything from the business, regardless of their income.
-- Ronn in Birmingham, AL :)
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