Sales Tax!!! I forgot all about sales tax- though we pay at least 8% here and I know when I got here (Wa. state) I was paying about the same sales tax in both places.
Tax wise my favorite place to live was Alaska- there was a 2% sales tax in Anchorage but nowhere else- no income taxes and every year each citizen actually GOT money from the state from the oil revenues. I guess some people have smart governments.
I can't fathom the need for more money with the way they already RAPE the people there. I am certainly glad the owner isn't paying the 10-15K but still at 5K a pop for houses in less desirable areas. The state must be making a killing in property taxes alone. Just a few hundred thousand on my mothers street alone. I find it so hard to believe they don't have enough money.
Here when they want to raise taxes they tell us they will have to cut essential services if it doesn't pass- fire and police always get threatened- I am sure it is the smae everywhere. If they would quit spending so much on entitlements and enviromental BS then they wouldn't kep falling short. Course our fellow constituents just voted twice to send more money to the wastelands more commonly known as public schools. We are headed the way of California - I guess it in inevitable since so many of us are transplanted from there. Hopefully my husband and I will pick the best (most profitable) time to sell and get the hell out of here.
One of the other saving graces of Proposition 13 was that it dictated that your property taxes can't be increased more than 2% a year as long as you own the place. Only when it's sold will it be reassessed and the 1% tax imposed on the new higher value value. So people (like me) who've occupied their homes for a long time have some relief. My property taxes would be 3 times what they are now if that provision wasn't in effect.
Here when they want to raise taxes they tell us they will have to cut essential services if it doesn't pass- fire and police always get threatened- I am sure it is the smae everywhere.
That's the source of the "closing the Washington Monument" remark in the article: every time the U.S. Park Service has its budget threatened, they say they'll have to close the Washington Monument, one of the most popular tourist destinations in D.C. It's become both a joke and a symbol of how bureaucracies defend themselves against budget cuts. They pick the most visible and popular programs and say they'll have to be shut down. Nobody would care if they said they were going to have to cut staff in the Weights and Measures department.