OH NO! Not CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!~snicker
Posted on 06/10/2004 5:47:27 AM PDT by Know your rights
SPRINGFIELD [IL] - A sales tax on junk food and certain soft drinks may be back in play as Gov. Rod Blagojevich and legislative leaders try to reach a budget compromise.
A two-hour meeting in Blagojevich's office Wednesday produced progress, leaders said, including on the contentious issue of revenue increases needed to balance the budget.
Among the ideas under consideration is extending the state sales tax to so-called junk food and to beverages such as fruit drinks and bottled iced tea that are not currently taxed. The idea could bring in as much as $100 million for the state.
"It is in play," said Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville. "We're not necessarily advocating it, but it is an issue we will discuss."
"It is certainly on the table," said House Republican Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego. "No one has said yes. The governor said he has some concerns about it. I think it's one of those (options) with a question mark."
The junk food tax is one of a number of revenue options the four leaders are supposed to discuss with their caucus members during the next few days. Depending on the reaction of rank-and-file members, those revenues could be part of a budget compromise or could be rejected.
Wednesday's negotiating session was the first since Blagojevich blasted a legal opinion issued by Attorney General Lisa Madigan as politically motivated. Madigan said last week that a plan to mortgage the Thompson Center in Chicago amounted to issuing state debt and needed a super-majority vote in the General Assembly to proceed. The decision wiped out a $210 million source of income. Blagojevich said the attorney general was simply doing the bidding of her father, House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.
If the speaker was upset about Blagojevich's comments, it didn't carry over to the meeting, Cross said.
"I didn't detect any tension today," Cross said. "There was no tension on that issue at all."
Madigan normally refuses to talk to reporters after these sessions, but he said Wednesday that "we made some progress today."
"I will continue to say what I've been saying all along: that the problem here is that the governor has been borrowing and spending money that the state just does not have to spend," Madigan said. "We should work to stop that."
Cross said the leaders eliminated from discussion a number of the business tax increases Blagojevich has sought, including a tax on computer software purchased by business and changing depreciation rules.
"I think a good number of those were ruled out," Cross said.
Despite reports of progress, there is still a long way to go until a budget agreement is reached. Negotiators still haven't gotten into spending details, including how much of an increase should go for education or Medicaid spending. There isn't even agreement on whether to start with the current budget and add money to programs or to start with Blagojevich's budget plan and make cuts. Blagojevich's budget called for nearly $900 million in spending increases.
However, Watson said there is agreement not to spend as much as Blagojevich initially requested.
"We don't have the income coming in to go to the governor's (spending) level," Watson said.
Lawmakers missed the May 31 deadline set by the state constitution to pass a new budget. Rank-and-file members were sent home while selected budget negotiators continued to work. Because legislators missed the deadline, Republican votes are now necessary to pass a new state budget.
Although state government has enough money in the current budget to keep operating until June 30, if a new one isn't approved by then, it will run out of money.
You just precisely stated the argument used to tax candy, soda etc while not taxing groceries. Thank you.
How did I do that? I suggest you re-read what I said.
I explicitly state that having different tax rates on different items is a Bad ThingTM... that, to take this example, that all groceries -- whether or not it's fruit, meat, eggs, candy, chips, soda, whatever -- should be taxed at exactly the same rate. It is up to the individual, not the state, to determine what is a necessity for themselves.
OH NO! Not CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!~snicker
There is only one tax rate in this case and it doesn't apply to essentials, just like the NRST.
No, there are two tax rates, one of which is zero. Completely unlike the NRST.
The NRST guys are experts at semantics. Even the NRST doesn't tax EVERYTHING. Therefore that tax has two rates.
No semantics, just the honest and complete truth. All goods and services used at the consumer (retail) level are taxed, exactly once and at exactly the same rate under the NRST. Do not confuse the resale of previously taxed items (which are not taxed a second time) with the idea of exempting certain items from the tax.
You still haven't bothered to respond to the four ways I pointed out in my #40 that the NRST's FCA differs from special taxes on certain items. Who's the one playing semantics here?
You start with ALL goods and services are taxed and then you provide exemptions for certain purchases and for certain income levels. You claim this is only one tax while another tax that does essentially the same thing only with a different methodolgy two taxes. Please.
Um... no. You seem to be misinformed. There are no retail purchases that are exempted, and there are no exemptions for certain income levels -- everyone pays the marginal rate on every purchase. The family consumption allowance is available to every family, regarless of income level (must be a lawful resident of the US). This does affect the effective (net) tax rate, based on total retail spending, but does not affect the marginal (at-the-register) rate.
Since no items are exempted from the NRST, I can't see where you make the comparison. The big difference is that by exempting specific items or by only taxing certain items, you are using the tax code to encourage or discourage, respectively, the consumption of those items. With a single-rate system, this type of social engineering does not exist, and no amount of repeated unfounded assertion on your part changes that fact.
However, by your own admission many purchases are exempt when for resold items. That is an exemption and by your standards a 0 tax.
You are social engineering by providing tax breaks for a certain level of purchases. Simply setting that level is social engineering. You are saying its okay to purchase X amount but ont x+1.
No, they are not exempted... they simply have already been taxed. The system is designed to prevent multiple or cascading taxation. This is why it is a national retail sales tax.
I guess we're going to have to just disagree on that, then. But even if we are to accept your definition (for the sake of discussion) -- that is still much, much different from promoting or discouraging specific items (smoking is bad, so we'll raise tobacco taxes... junk food is bad, so we'll tax junk food... guns are bad so we'll tax firearms and ammo). The worst you could say about the NRST is that is discourages consumption in general (though one could equally say about an income tax of any type that it discourages earning income in general), but if I do decide to buy something, it doesn't matter if it's bread, chips, steak, candy, alcohol, tobacco, a gun, a CD, a movie ticket, etc. -- none are better or worse for me under the tax system, and therefore the government is out of the business of telling me what I'm better off spending my money on.
All sales taxes are taxed on good and services multiple times because all sales are essentially resales. Its unavoidable. What happens is that someone decides certain resales are better than others.
The fruits of labor, natural resources etc are taxed over and over again.
But all this talk about a NRSt is pure mental gymnastics because it has less than a zero chance of being enacted. The only way it could pass would be as an add-on to the income tax.
This is flat-out wrong. You are describing a VAT, not a retail sales tax. An NRST is applied to a good or service exactly one time -- when it purchased for end-user consumption. There are no business-to-business taxes, nothing is taxed on resale, because this would lead to multiple taxation, i.e., a VAT. In essense, this is how the income tax works, as a subtraction-method VAT on the production chain.
But an NRST would elminate all of those "over and over again" taxes -- it is a single-stage, single-rate tax applied exactly once.
But all this talk about a NRSt is pure mental gymnastics because it has less than a zero chance of being enacted
Every time I turn around, there seems to be a new sponsor in the House. The bill has been introduced in the Senate for the first time. Momentum is on our side. Will it happen soon? Probably not. But the trend is promising, and I refuse to give up on the idea without a fight.
You must have missed all of those articles on how low-income people buy junk food. :)
Even a low-income person has choices as to how that income is used. Do I pay for better food and do without cable? Buy used clothing so I can take the kids to a movie once a month? And so on... just because the definition of the poverty line uses a particular set of expenditures to determine the level doesn't mean that those in poverty will actually spend their money on exactly those things. As long as it fits in their budget, they are free to spend their money however they want, without a government nanny telling them that X is good and Y is bad.
Of course the poor have fewer choices of what to buy than the rich. But then again, this is pretty much the definition of poor vs. rich in the first place.
Let me ask you the following hypotheticals. I write a book. I sell my rights to a book producer. Is the sale of my rights to the book producer taxable ? The book producer prints books. Are the sale of the books taxable ? The book producer sells the rights to a movie maker. Are the sales of the movie rights taxable ? The movie maker decides to make a movie and leases it to theaters. Are the leases taxable ? The movie theater sells to customers, are the sales to customers taxable ? The movie producer decides to make a DVD. The DVD's are sold to video stores. Are the sales to the stores taxable ? The video store rents the same videos to customers and average of 30 times. Is each rental taxable ? The video store then sells the video to a customer. Is that sale taxable ? The movie maker that has the rights sells the product endorsement rights to McDonalds. Is that sale taxable ? McDonalds sells action figures based on the movie to familes. Is that sale taxable ?
All in all I produced one work of literature that has been transformed into many different products and sold in many different forms. According to your idea the tax is only leveled one time. Please explain to me how it applies to the above.
Momentum is on our side. Will it happen soon? Probably not. But the trend is promising, and I refuse to give up on the idea without a fight.
Your batttle isn't the politicians. Its the market based economy. It will never happen because the impact on the economy is too unknown. The market hates uncertaintity. An NRST tax would create a completely unknown set of changes to the various markets. Such unknowns will not be tolerated by the market.
Setting a spending level is simple social engineering. I know, my wife and I do it as parents.
We give our kids an allowance for all their needs. It covers their lunches, their field trips, required spending as well as discretionary spending. We never say no to them spending it on whatever they want because we know that they don't have enough to do that. The amount we set is the minimum they need. It doesn't take a child more than one missed lunch to understand he doesn't have any real flexibility.
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