Thursday, April 27, 2006

et tu Little Buddy?

I got this comment on The Rep's blog. I don't want to hijack the blog on this issue.


Shaine...you still don't get it. Tax revenue is collected from many
sources. The abolishment of the manifiesto tax refund is just one way to raise
tax revenue. The Texas Legislature decides how to raise and spend this tax
revenue. I do not expect to fund public education only from tax revenue
collected from abolishing the manifiesto tax refund. At the same time, a simple
increase in cigarette tax or used auto sales tax or a different franchise tax,
alone, will not solve the issue. You get it. Bonds are totally different. The
voters decide if a bond is approved and the school districts decide how to spend
it. Now, if I did not persuade you with my research on the issue and the
excellent report from the comptroller's office, then I don't know what it will
take to convince you that from a policy perspective, it is a great idea!Your
analogies are totally off base and your commentaries are all over the place.


I know that the Legislature has the ability to tax anything that moves, and if it still moves, tax it again. You only brought up the issue of manifiestos. Never once did you mention combining it with other taxes. Besides, it is an a priori; it's established that one tax will not take the place of all taxes. You only kept your comment on one tax, and we replied on the one tax.

In your first comment, you only address manifiestos. There is no mention of additional taxes. In any case, the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from taxing foreigners, according to the comptroller's report. If Texas wanted, we could not legally do it. If you read the report in context, their goal is to reduce fraud, not raise tax revenue. So the extra money is not from eliminating manifiestos or taxing portions of them, an illegal act. The extra money comes from ensuring that goods are exported, which would probably cost whatever the state hoped to recover and more to enforce. Common folk like myself get stuck on details like legality and cost of implementation. I will grant you that I was all over the place on my comment. Too much thinking makes me ramble and my common sense shuts off.

In your second post, you essentially call the Rep, who was in session, a coward for not replying.

In the third post, you stay on the manifiesto issue and tell the Rep how to do his job. You mention adding to the tax base by taxing Mexican shoppers, which Texas cannot legally do.

In the fourth post, you explain your reasoning in more detail. You are right in that Mexicans will probably still shop in the RGV even if they have to pay a little more. I'll give you that. However, there is no remote connection between the shoppers and the influx of students from Mexico other than nationality. They are distinct groups of people. You are suggesting that to stop our hurt on one front we should hurt ourselves on another.

Fifth post was apologetic for being pushy.

Post number six provides links from your research on the issue. For future reference, research first and provide links so that others can follow your ideas easier. Good job on that. Keep up that habit.

In your last comment on The Rep's post, you won't let up on the manifiesto repeal as a revenue generator. If you stick to one topic, everybody else will stick to one topic. We common people were not discussing other taxes because you were insisting on addressing one.

If we all truly want equity with Dallas schools with respect to finance, we are going about the problem all wrong. Instead of arguing about whose ox to gore, we should look into creating wealth in the Rio Grande Valley. What can we do to attract more industry, more tourism, and more commerce in general? Only by making the RGV wealthy on the scale of Dallas, can we hope to finance our schools better. Mexican shoppers are one of the hands that feed us.

The money local shops make from selling to Mexican tourists goes towards their ability to buy homes, cars, and other goods. The wealthier the RGV gets, the higher our property values will go from appreciation and new construction. This will generate more revenue for our local schools to rid us of our dependence on state funds. By screwing over Mexican shoppers, we are creating a roadblock to our prosperity. Instead, we should focus on getting more Mexican shoppers to come here to spend their money. Although we can't legally tax Mexican shoppers directly, we can tax the shopkeepers who spend their earnings. That is the point I'm trying to make. We skip one cycle of taxation with the Mexican shoppers, but we have many opportunities to tax the money they leave behind.

Of course, common people like myself only see that the legislature is creating new tax streams to make up for the lost revenues stemming from the Texas Supreme Court's decision that the Robin Hood plan is unconstitutional. We're ignorant of the fact that the state cannot have a property tax, which is reserved for local government entities; and that the court decision cut off an indirect property tax by the state, creating a budget shortfall for education. It never occured to me that the state is scrambling to find billions of dollars in new and various revenues just to stay even. The nuances are just too subtle for us common people in the Valley to grasp. Sorry, we went to public schools.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You still don't get it and you are still all over the place. The more you write, the more mistakes you make.

Your interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling is wrong. And your "analysis" of my comments is also wrong. You don't get it. Just give up.

And please don't put down our schools from the Valley. There are many excellent professionals out of our public schools. If you are the exception, it is not our fault, nor our problem.

Writer said...

If you're so smart, why can't you explain it? So far, NOBODY knows what you want.

Try this. Keep it short and simple.

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