Left In Lowell

Mob Rule

14 Responses to “Mob Rule”

1. Josh Says:
   December 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 pm

   Yea, what the hell do I know about keeping the money I earned? I’m just some hardworking stupid shmuck. I’m better off giving it to Deval Patrick because he’s sooooo much smarter than I am.

   Now if you’ll excuse, I’m going to go touch a hot stove and play in traffic (unless Patrick makes a law about it real quick!).

2. Mr. Lynne Says:
   December 3rd, 2007 at 10:13 pm

   Nope… haven’t heard that one before a million times. I wonder what would happen if I decided to cut my income by 11/28… I’m sure I can keep up the mortgage payment with that though right?

3. mrigney Says:
   December 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 pm

   Josh, that’s fine with me as long as you’re not expecting any cops to stop the traffic while you play in it or any paramedics to treat you after they don’t. And of course, I assume the stove you’re playing with is run off of your own generator, fueled with gas that wasn’t drilled with any public subsidies and not transported on any public roads. Right?

4. Shawn Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 10:09 am

   Yup.. never seen a cop in New Hampshire.

   And them there witch doctors in the woods of Concord and Manchester can keep away the evil spirits.

5. Mr. Lynne Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 10:46 am

   The guy who headed up the 2000 census was on NH public radio some 7 or 8 years ago. The thing I remember him pointing out is that on balance, NH taxpayers don’t pay less tax just because they don’t have an income tax. They just pay about the same amounts but through other taxes.

   So the people who pay for NH cops pay about the same amount of taxes as the rest of the nation, just from different sources. Maybe I misunderstood you. Your earlier statement seemed to be railing against all taxes (”keeping the money I earned” implies it). Am I to understand that your statement about NH cops implicitly accepts NH spending levels? If so, then you don’t necessarily want taxes lowered, just their sources changed? I wonder how much we will spend changing all this stuff around while winding up revenue neutral.

6. Evan Ravitz Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 11:47 am

   Your choice is not direct OR representative democracy: it’s either both (as 24 states and Switzerland have) or a monopoly of power by other legislatures and Congress.

   You need to look beyond the media’s picking on the bad ballot initiatives (media is a tool of the monopolists, either corporate or political) and review the WHOLE history of initiatives in the US and Switzerland -and think how to improve on it.

   Consider that 6 of 7 states with “Clean Elections” got them by initiative; 8 of 13 states with medical marijuana got them by initiative; 6 states just in 2006 raised minimum wages by initiative, and that 13 states passed Women’s Suffrage by initiative before Congress finally went along. Vote.org/initiatives has links to details.

   Consider that government can no more reform itself than it can investigate itself. Consider that Switzerland, where they’ve had national initiatives for 160 years, has the highest newspaper readership in the world: responsibility gives people a reason to educate themselves.

   Voters DO need what legislatures get: public hearings, expert testimony, amendments, reports, etc. on the initiatives they’ll vote on. The lack of these now explains most of the mistakes made by initiatives.

   Famed former Sen. Mike Gravel has a project for better, easier and national ballot initiatives. YOU can now vote to ratify the National Initiative at Vote.org, much as citizens -NOT the exiting 13 legislatures- ratified the Constitution at the Conventions!

   Once we have NATIONAL initiatives we can stop wars, torture, domestic spying, get single-payer health care, a carbon tax and all the other things the vast majority want, but Congress impedes. If “pro” is the opposite of “con” what is Congress?

   Democracy can’t stand still. “Our” government now passes far more laws, most destructive, than the Founders could imagine, but we still only get to vote every 2 or 4 years. We have to have more control of “our” government.

7. waittilnextyr Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 12:24 pm

   Certainly there is waste in State government, and the various governmental agencies (Massport, MBTA, Turnpike Authority, etc.). Until that waste is eliminated, people have a good gripe about any new form of “revenue” being requested. Our government owes us the effort to do that.

   Eliminating the income tax appears to be an effort to “starve the beast”. But those tactics usually end up in the threat to discontinue those services that are the most important to us (education, transportation infrastructure, public safety, parks, etc.) rather than to eliminate the waste first. And in the end we cave into the reality that is forced upon us.

8. Shawn Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

   To stick with the revenue neutral thing for now (though I do still prefer reducing taxes)…

   I can open my town budget book, and when I find a line item I dont understand I can (and have) walk into the manager’s office and have him explain it to me.

   The closer the taxes are to you, the closer responsibility you have. The more remote they are, the more you get earmarks and pork spending (justify in any way my taxes paying for a gazebo in some remote western Mass town).

   So if its revenue neutral.. then go for it. If a town is too small to support its own services it should look into merging with a neighbor… not look to the rest of us to pay its bills.

9. Mr. Lynne Says:
   December 4th, 2007 at 1:28 pm

   OK. So you see the elimination of the income tax as a structural solution to public oversight of spending. Why didn’t you just say so rather than your first comment which apparently got you misunderstood?

10. Shawn Says:
    December 4th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    Cuz the first one also made the explicit point that states can provide services without an income tax.. which many seem to want to imply otherwise.

11. Mr. Lynne Says:
    December 4th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    I understand. I think the original sentiment was with regard to massive massive tax cuts by elimination of the income tax, not to a (potentially) revenue neutral reorganizing of the books. So in a sense, your sentiment (if not your original statement) is apples and oranges to theirs, since your not talking about a 40% reduction in the state’s income. To bring the discussion more on par, you’d have to point out that such an income tax elimination need not mean an overall drop in revenue.

    Of course, to make that distinction you would have to address the specifics of what was said. In this case you’d have to point out that “…we need an income tax…” isn’t true so much as “we need taxes” in general and they don’t necessarily need to be income taxes. There are those, of course, for whom it is distasteful to say “we need taxes”.

12. Shawn Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    I think what is distasteful is “we need more taxes,” as opposed to “we need to reduce overall taxation” (which I prefer).

    This UML issue is another example. The state has decided unilaterally to allow students from one other state to attend our state subsidized schools at a reduced rate.

    There was no need for this. Our schools are being funded by the taxpayers to provide education to our own. Suddenly, we’ve decided to provide state subsidized services to non-citizens at a reduced rate.

    What benefit is this to the Massachusetts taxpayer?

    The state seems to have no problem figuring out new ways to spend my money.. but never wants to figure ways to cut back.

    Sometimes you just have to cut off the supply and see if the balloon shrinks.

13. Mr. Lynne Says:
    December 6th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    “What benefit is this to the Massachusetts taxpayer?” Don’t know, but there may indeed be one. I’m guessing (or at least hope) that someone did an internal report or study that backs up the idea before they decided to go ahead with this. It’d be interesting to see the study or report’s data and conclusions. In the mean time I would think that, healthy skepticism aside, assuming there is no benefit is just that… an assumption.

    “Sometimes you just have to cut off the supply and see if the balloon shrinks.”
    It would do well first to make a convincing case that the balloon is in need of shrinking. That there is opportunity to cut waste in any sufficiently large system is a given, but to suggest that the system need not be so large is a different assertion all together.

14. Michael in NH and Pawtucket Says:
    December 9th, 2007 at 12:37 am

    Regarding Shawn (12) and Mr. Lynne (13),

    The agreement that provides discounted rates for New England states has been around since the late 1950s. The plan is called the New England Regional Study Program which allows students residing in New England states to receive discounted rates at other New England state colleges and universities if they meet certain conditions. In the 2006-2007 school year, 2274 MA residents took advantage of discounted rates in other New England states. The general program allows residents to study in other states if the major that they are interested in isn’t offered in their own state. There is also a Proximity Rule which allows a student the rate of 150% of the in-state rate in an out-of-state school if that school is closer to his residence than his own state school. And this is what UML is doing.

    Regarding the issue of Income Taxes in comparing NH and MA:

    I grew up in MA (24 years) and moved to NH about 19 years ago. We now have residences in NH and Pawtucketville.

    NH doesn’t provide anywhere near the services that MA does which results in fewer people moving to the state that need a high level of services. In addition, the lack of a general income tax (there is an income tax for interest and dividends) has resulted in some high-income people moving to the state so that they can keep a greater percentage of their income from state taxes.

    Property taxes, of course, are higher than they are in MA as they relatively fewer services do have to be paid for. NH has few densely populated cities (Portland, Concord, Manchester, Nashua which are fairly small cities) that require a lot of state aid. And you can actually choose how much you want to pay in state taxes based on what you purchase. You could make a million a year and own a $200,000 house and pay $6,000 a year in taxes (state and local). In MA, you’d pay $50K for income taxes, local taxes and sales taxes. Now many have moved into NH from MA with calls for more services that they were used to in MA so the trend in NH is to more services and higher taxes.

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