Today, the Assembly special session was convened, the budget mess being the purpose. The tax ideas being floated to "fix" it include 3 ideas I’ll talk about here, [plus, there’s a new tax on services and a vehicle fee increase].
Let me put it this way: When you get in your car [with a higher reg fee? or higher repair fees?], you pay a new oil tax. When you get to the store, you pay an increased sales tax. When you find you have less to spend because government is spending it for you, you may stop at the local watering hole and pay an increased alcohol tax per drink. Even then you may realize that dying won’t get you off the hook as the Fed death tax increases exponentially when the death tax phasedown expires Dec 31 2009, but that’s a Federal issue that I’ll leave out of the rest of this post.
The oil severance tax applies to domestically produced oil…a sure fire incentive to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, yeah!
The sales tax increase, only temporary you know, of 1.5% is a surefire winner for boosting the economy going into the Christmas season in an economy when the true revenue vs. the projected budget numbers for sales tax intake is already down 35%, great! [I’m sure people won’t ‘stock up’ just before the tax increases and hold off on important purchases just before it expires…you know, like the sales tax expired back to 6% when it was temporarily 7 1/4% after the big ’89 earthquake.
And the alcohol tax will make, by 5 cents per drink for each 1.5 ounces of actual alcohol or some such thing, even more expensive to drown your sorrows caused by high gas prices and fewer dollars available to you to buy the GI Joe with Kung Fu grip for your kid’s Christmas.
Yup, we’re back in session alright…only 23 days left til this term really really ends! But rest assured, there will be only a 12 hour gap this year where there will be no Assembly sworn in and only half a Senate…and the new members are already in training all day tomorrow!