I'm a RINO! TAX ME!
Posted on 12/28/2002 11:59:09 AM PST by hsmomx3
Arizona boasts a long, strong tradition of Republicans who care deeply about our state and our future. As part of that tradition and as a businessman, I am keenly aware of the need to maximize dollars flowing within the economy, especially during these economic hard times.
As a pragmatic Republican, I know the only logical thing to do right now is to raise taxes. The facts are clear and incontrovertible:
• Cutting basic government services is bad for business. Eliminating state jobs and state spending threatens our economic recovery.
Our economy needs the stimulus of tax dollars to keep money flowing in the economy. If we do the opposite - cut services and take tax dollars out of the economy - private businesses will ultimately feel the pinch. I have yet to see a business that shrank itself to greatness. That applies to government as well.
• Even before the budget crisis hit, Arizona's state and local governments spent less per capita than any other state in the country on operating expenditures. We did not enter this budget crisis overflowing with excess or unnecessary spending.
• Our tax code hasn't kept up with the times and the changing consumption patterns of Arizonans. Why should we expect a 1930s tax code to be effective in 2003? Special tax treatment for select goods narrows the tax base, distorts consumer behavior and is just plain unfair for industries that haven't (yet) gotten some special exemption.
• Businesses should play on a level playing field when it comes to taxes, but under our current system it often doesn't work that way.
If I buy something at an Arizona store, the retailer pays sales taxes to Arizona. If I buy that exact same item over the Internet, the e-tailer may or may not collect and submit state sales taxes. That's not fair to our local merchants to the tune of almost $140 million per year.
There was a time a few years ago when Internet selling deserved some special breaks because it was a totally new form of commerce that might rewrite the rules on selling. Now, however, we have seen that it is just another way of doing business and does not deserve the tax breaks that penalize all the businesses that invest in bricks and mortar and employees.
• During the past decade, our Legislature has enacted state tax cuts, enough to total more than $775 million each year. It¹s only fair that those of us who enjoyed some of the perks of the economic boom times be willing to take some responsibility when it comes to the state budget crisis.
When the state economy was strong, did we do the prudent thing and put money aside for a "rainy day"? No, we reduced our "rainy day" fund and cut taxes so much that when the inevitable economic downturn came, we were caught without proper savings to help weather the slump.
Even though we have consistently made choices as a state to do things on the cheap, we seem surprised when we consistently get crummy results. We rank at the bottom when it comes to important issues such as school dropouts and child poverty. State budget cuts will only move us backwards from there.
There are both selfish and pragmatic reasons I care about the state budget. My business will suffer if I can't find qualified employees or move my product across Arizona highways because accidents don't get cleared. As a businessman, I want a well-prepared and educated workforce. I want sound family supports, like health insurance and child care assistance, for my employees and customers who need them.
On a more fundamental level, I care about this state. I moved to Arizona because I love it here. As an Arizonan, I want us to be best in the nation when it comes to quality-of-life issues like high school graduation rates, stellar universities, healthy citizens, well-trained employees and family income.
As a Republican, I know that we need to invest in Arizona to make it a state worthy of all the great people who live here. And, yes, I'm willing to pay more taxes to make that happen.
Dan Schweiker is chairman and CEO of Scottsdale-based China Mist Tea Co.
That's the smartest thing you could do. As we've learned in California, the legislature finds no shortage of "rainy days" when "rainy day" funds are sitting there for the taking. They've even been raiding our trust funds for highways, sewers, and the like, just because no pot of money is safe when the politicians are out to buy some votes or throw some cash toward their pet causes.
• Cutting basic government services is bad for business. Eliminating state jobs and state spending threatens our economic recovery. Our economy needs the stimulus of tax dollars to keep money flowing in the economy.
If I buy something at an Arizona store, the retailer pays sales taxes to Arizona. If I buy that exact same item over the Internet, the e-tailer may or may not collect and submit state sales taxes. That's not fair to our local merchants to the tune of almost $140 million per year.
Bastard.
This is a fine example of a "me, me, me, fiscal" conservative" I hate these guy's.
All he's worried about is himself and his money. If he thinks raising taxes will somehow help his business, he's all for it. No principle, no concern for his fellow man, just "me, me, me" raise taxes, do anything just help me uncle state gov!
You moron, did it ever occur to you that online shoppers have to pay shipping charges that retail shoppers do not? They also have to wait to receive their purchases and they always run the risk of them being lost or of being defrauded.. plus, potential credit card interest. that ought to be worth something.
Look at sales taxes. I don't know what they are in AZ, but let's assume a nice round 5%. Now a purchase of 100.00 (higher than the average retail ticket I bet) would yield the state five bucks. In all likelihood the shipping on that same purchase would meet or exceed $5.00, plus there's all the other inconveniences I mentioned.
This is a brick and mortar guy who can't compete and wants uber-gov to come to the rescue and bail his butt out at the expense of both taxpayers and newer, more flexible entrepreneurs.
A worthless rino, pig begging the government to raise taxes.
Right, so get rid of it.
Exactly. He apparently does not see any level beyond which government should NOT expand.
He also exhibits a complete lack of understanding of basic macroeconomics.... i.e. the formula for GNP...
GNP = Consumer spending + Investment + Govt. spending - Transfer payments (taxes).
If govt. spending is in balance with taxation, then the last 2 components of the formula are mere offsets. If there is less govt. spending and a corresponding reduction in taxes, then GNP remains the same.
But then, as a "journalist", he need not be burdened by facts.
Exactly, Nat... it's a little like the "let's gamble our way to prosperity" mindset that pushes Lotto off on a gullible public.
We're running into this nonsense in my hometown, too. The city fathers have spent like a bunch of drunk sailors, squandered the "surplus" ( which I believe was a bookkeeping gimmick, nothing more ) and tried to raise taxes to hide their malfeasance.
They are being recalled, and criminal inditements are expected. But it's been going on for years, at city level, and at county level.
We have only touched the tip of an iceberg.
"As a Republican, I know that we need to invest in Arizona to make it a state worthy of all the great people who live here. And, yes, I'm willing to pay more taxes to make that happen."
See, in true Shakespearean "thou doth protesteth too much" fashion, Schweiker feels it necessary to emphasize at the beginning and at the end of his screed that he is a Republican. This gives his claptrap credibility, you see. He may be registered Republican, but he is indeed a stinking, scumbag Democrat, no question. He's a liar.
Then, when he says, "yes, I'm willing to pay more taxes", what he really means is that he is willing to have everybody else pay more taxes. A true liberal Democrat in every sense of the word.
Hey, Dan - - go ahead and write a big fat check to the Arizona state treasury if that taps your toe. But I bet there's a whole lot of people who don't appreciate you wanting to give away their money.
You filthy little puke.
December 28, 2002
Lipton plant packs its bags
By DAN WHITE
The Santa Cruz SentinelSANTA CRUZ — They knew for an entire year that the end was coming.
But that didn´t make the end less painful for 135 employees of Lipton Tea employees, who watched their plant shut down shortly before Christmas.
A few are leaving the state to work at other Lipton plants. Many more will be heading to the local unemployment office.
"There are a lot of bitter employees, of course," said a female employee who did not give her name. "Some people got jobs in other plants, but a lot of people who worked here 25, 30 years no longer have a job."
After years of downscaling — including an ongoing shared leasing arrangement with Harmony Foods that began in the mid-1990s — company administration announced in January it would shut its local plant by the end of the year. Uniliver Bestfoods, which owns Lipton, said it would be cheaper to do business elsewhere "for the long-term future of our business."
Lipton was a ghost building on Friday afternoon with no one around but a security guard.
It´s been a dispiriting month for the Santa Cruz business community. Around the same time Lipton shut its doors, the Wherehouse music chain announced it was about to close its 10,000-square-foot store on Pacific Avenue — just down the street from the family-owned Integrand Designs store, which closed in September.
The Lipton shutdown follows more than 30 years of operation on Delaware Avenue.
A former plant manager, Wally Dale, 63, who retired three years ago, said some workers will go to Suffolk, Va., Tucson, Ariz., and the City Of Industry. He could not estimate how many lost their jobs.
Dale said the company worked hard to steer people who faced layoffs into job-training programs.
"Lipton bent over backward to try to do things right for employees," he said.
The current plant manager and representatives of the Netherlands-based Unilver Bestfoods could not be reached to comment.
During its peak in the mid-1980s, the plant occupied 320,000 square feet and had 550 employees. It produced three mainstay Lipton products: dried soups, tea bags and Wish Bone salad dressing. It added Fun Fruits, Fruit Rolls and other products that came and went.
"It got to the point where the plant was bigger than needed, there was idle space and it was not economic to run it anymore," Dale said.
The plant produced 20 million pounds of tea annually. The plant would receive tea in bulk, blend it, put it in tea bags and prepare it for shipping.
Dale said the loss is part of a general manufacturing downturn, but he also blamed the past two decades of progressive Santa Cruz city councils.
"We worked very hard to keep it open, but sometimes the economics of having a business in Santa Cruz just isn´t that feasible" Dale said.
He said the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce and a "pro-business" council in the early 1970s actively recruited and encouraged Lipton to make Santa Cruz its West Coast hub.
"(But) The City Council has been anti business for years, and if you look around you, there has been a migration out of Santa Cruz for quite some time."
He pointed to Texas Instruments and the William Wrigley Co. as businesses that pulled the plug on their Santa Cruz operations. All three companies were longtime tenants of the industrial area bordering Delaware Avenue on the city´s Westside.
The Lipton closing means there is suddenly 145,000 square feet of unused space in that building. A "For Lease" sign was already in front of the building Friday, hawking "warehouse and flex space."
The current owner of the Lipton building is a partnership that includes Barry Swenson Builder, said real estate broker Kristen Macken, who is trying to find a tenant to sub-lease the space from Lipton.
Macken said several warehousing and distribution companies, and one food manufacturer, have expressed interest in the space.
Councilman Mike Rotkin said none of the recent business closings, on an individual basis, were disasters for the city.
But taken together, they are part of a troubling trend, he said.
"Santa Cruz is not doing worse than its neighbors," he said. "Sometimes we outperformed others because of tourism. But we´re in a situation where the economy is down, sales taxes are off, and that hurts everybody. (Utility tax repeal) didn´t pass so we´re not in a complete meltdown. But we are in a serious economic crunch. There will undoubtedly be layoffs in the city government."
He denied the city has been anti business, and said it has worked with companies that provide industrial jobs. He said companies that avoid Santa Cruz also avoid countless other areas with environmental regulations.
He guessed it will be very difficult to find a comparable manufacturer to fill the space.
Rotkin said the city should continue to play to one of its greatest strengths: tourism. He said he planned to encourage the City Council to take up the issue of a conference hotel in the Beach Street area as a source of city revenue.
He hopes the council will put the idea on the table again perhaps by the end of the winter.
A previous, more intensive conference center-hotel plan drew strong opposition three years ago, and was rolled back because of community and council opposition.
There is only one way to determine which services are essential, and that is by finding out which services each individual will voluntarily pay for. This rules out taxation, which only indicates which services someone in power thinks that he can force others to pay for.
I'm a RINO! TAX ME!
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