Possible tax on sodas in Texas

newschannel10 ^ | 4/19/2011 | Blair Bernier

[annelizly]

wow. so americans have come to this? where a pop is considered a luxury to be taxed? a LUXURY? serious? Maybe they should tax cell phones. now there is a luxury. But not pop. thats is just sad and desperate.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I don’t see that as being in any way exclusive to what I’m proposing. It’s purely about money.

Putting and keeping someone in jail is very expensive, from $15k per year to $30k a year. And if it is for a petty, public offense, in effect the taxpayer is being abused twice: first by the offender, and second by having to pay for him.

Sheriff Arpaio in AZ hit on the idea of using tents to house them, instead of “brick jails”, and it saves a ton of money. But the bottom line is why should we pay for them at all, if they can instead pay the public for doing what they did?

And, in the process, States are no longer in debt, what’s not to like?

[dragnet2]

You want to raise fines, fees, court costs, create more laws and double and triple what those alleged offenders pay in court. Most of the people caught up in the government legal machine are broke or near broke anyway.

We have adequate laws in place for all that.

The problem is government at all levels refuses stop spending on programs and forces tax payers to feed house and medicate tens of millions of illegal aliens etc.

We don't need more fines, fees and regulation. We need less government intrusion and less government.

If the state of Texas, or California for that matter, would simply stop all tax paid support of illegal aliens, and eliminated hundreds of thousands of over paid government bureaucrat positions, the budgets would be balanced in a timely manner.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Future budgets, maybe. But not past debts, some of which are immense. Likewise, there is a good chance for a decade or more of economic malaise, in which cutbacks alone won’t bring in enough revenue for State management.

Eventually the serious crime rates are going to go up again, so jail and prison space will be needed, jail space at least that is today all too often taken by “unimpressive” offenders, that still need punishment for their transgressions.

As far as illegals go, just a few days ago it was noted that because of the new AZ anti-illegal alien law, the State has imprisoned 500 fewer inmates this year than this time last year. While 500 x the $30,000 per each individual cost of a prisoner should not be sneezed at, it hardly makes a dent on the number of lesser prisoners around the State, that could be put “out of the system” as long as they reimbursed the public for their offenses.

And that 500 x $30k is not profit, just money not spent. Whereas fining misdemeanors is not just savings, but money in the pocket.

[dragnet2]

You don't get it. No one wants bigger more punitive government. Tell the government assholes to eliminate tens of thousands of government employee dead weight, eliminate their tax paid lottery type benefits and pensions, tell them the tax payers have been punished violated enough by this government supported epic, violent illegal invasion, which is literally choking off our entire system, including our jails, schools, social services, health care, hospitals and undermining and compromising our very electoral process.

Do this, and the budgets get balanced. Do this

[VRWCmember]

Got bad news for you. Once government starts down this road, of there is no turning back.

While that may be true on the left coast, here in Texas we still manage to rein in the looniest lefties that roam the halls of our capitol building. This bill will probably never see the light of day, let alone a vote; but there is absolutely no way it will become law in the great State of Texas.

[dragnet2]

Nice thought..Like the litter campaign slogan, "Don't mess with Texas". Sounds nice.

Ya see there was also a day when Texas hospitals were not home to thousands of illegal alien's anchor babies every single month...You and everyone else are and will be forced to pay dearly for this and the demands will only grown. I've seen all this before.