Everyone's a twitter this morning as John Sharp, much like a groundhog, pops up to reveal the long awaited tax fix. And then we get two paragraphs into it and our insomnia was cured.
The 92 page document (a PDF file, no less) almost sucked us in to snuggle up on the sofa, turn off the phone and spend our day with some International Coffee and what we guess is a real page-turner. Instead we'll peruse the state headlines, wait for a few press releases to come our way and then one of y'all will have read it all by then and will tell us what's in it that's good, bad and ugleeee.
The Statesman this morning is focusing on the $1 a pack tax on cigarettes. One dollar a pack, gosh...remember when cigarettes were a nickel?
We're hoping there is a new tax on some of things we suggested earlier. Instead of a franchise tax or income tax, all we need in this state is a stupid tax. We'd have surpluses every year! We're wondering what Lawrence will have to say about it over at ITPT cause you know he's got something to say.
My questions is this: First off, I don't understand, well any of this stuff. However, let me get this straight. Perry's plan is to lower property taxes by $6 billion. They get back to the amount of funding by having a $1 per pack cigarette tax for $800 million, business tax for $4 billion, and $1 billion out of the state surplus. Sounds great. The numbers add up... for this year. What about next year when we can't use $1 billion out of the surplus? Is that $6 billion for forever (obviously not)? After this year, we stil have the business tax (great) and cigarette tax (nasty), but where is that other BILLION from the surplus?