[Blood of Tyrants]

That is the worst piece of pro-income tax propaganda I have ever read. For example, the author throws out the following

sales tax receipts have not been hit nearly as hard as income tax revenues. But the problem with the sales tax is that its base has not moved forward with the times. “Nearly every state has a defective sales tax in terms of dealing with the economy of the 21st century,”

In one sentence he admits that a sales tax is much more stable than an income tax and in the next he derides it as being "defective" and "not moving with the times". By which he obviously means that we have refused to become Marxists!

How DARE we refuse to implement an income tax like the rest of the lemmings!

[mpreston]

Definitely pro-tax. These people are idiots. From the Colorado section:

"For the past decade, a constitutional amendment has crippled Colorado's representative government when it comes to fiscal issues. Dubbed TABOR , for the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights , it strangled officials' ability to raise taxes by adding to the state's constitution the requirement that voter approval be obtained for any tax increase.
TABOR also limits annual revenue growth to the sum of inflation and population increase. Any revenues collected beyond that ceiling must be refunded to the state's residents. What if the treasury is starved for cash? Too bad. The voters have to grant permission for the government to retain the money. This was tried. It failed. (Interestingly, TABOR also applies to local governments, and they?ve been successful in the majority of their attempts to retain extra funds.)"

In the first sentence they say TABOR is bad, then they say it works. I say it works. TABOR hasn't crippled representative government, it has just restrained the spending habits. Sure we have a deficit. I'd rather we have a deficit and have to cut programs, like businesses have to in a recession, than insulate government from economic cycles by raising taxes.

- Mark