Taxation Proposal

In a local Coast community, Ocean Springs, MS has come up with a novel idea to get people to expand or innovate their businesses.

The proposed tax abatement will allow businesses to deduct up to 80 percent of their city property tax for a period of 10 years on any expansions or renovations.

It does not apply to businesses such as apartment complexes and condominiums.

Mayor Connie Moran said some business owners in Ocean Springs are unsure about expanding or renovating their businesses because of the higher tax bill they’ll receive.

By receiving a break on their city taxes, they can proceed with their improvement projects.

Another give away to business—where will the city make up for the revenue loss for this move?

Instead of looking for ways to increase the revenue and thusly able to fund city preojects without going in the hole, these people want to give away the revenue and worry about it later.  It is all just a stupid political game.

This could be avoided by one very simple move–Land Value Taxation–it is not a difficult thing to do…it will take will and ability…two things that most of the mayors on the Coast do not have.  They are elected by personality and likability, not capability

If more is needed about LVT then please click on my page here entitled, Land Value Taxation, and an explanation of the proposal will be there to check it out.

Cig Tax UpDate

Mr Specter was facing a tough challenge from conservative Pat Toomey, in a primary election to decide who would run as the Republican candidate for Mr Specter’s Pennsylvania senate seat in 2010.

Polls suggested that Mr Specter’s decision to vote for the president’s economic stimulus package earlier this year had been unpopular with Republican activists in the state.

If this is successful then I want to see what they will go after next…you can bet that it will not effect the wealthy.

Buy And Shop Locally

We have all seen the ads on the tube where local business leaders stand around and tell you that it is your duty to help the local economy during this time of crisis by shopping and buying locally.

But where is the incentive for the consumer to do so?  They will go where they save a buck, not because some overpaid spokesperson is saying to to so.

Recently I read an article about the use of BerkShares, a currency printed by some local people in the Massachusetts area.

BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a “great economic experiment” by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities. Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares had a robust initiation, with over one million BerkShares having been circulated in the first nine months and over two million to date. Currently, more than three hundred and fifty businesses have signed up to accept the currency. Five different banks have partnered with BerkShares, with a total of twelve branch offices now serving as exchange stations. For BerkShares, this is only the beginning. Future plans could involve BerkShare checking accounts, electronic transfer of funds, ATM machines, and even a loan program to facilitate the creation of new, local businesses manufacturing more of the goods that are used locally.
Click here for more information about BerkShares.

This is a better idea that needs exploring  if these people are serious about shoppinmg and spending locally.  This concept fulfills all the criteria of shopping locally and helping the establishments.

The problem is that Mississippi is never serious about the local thing….local business do not pay the political bills and buy few friends, real friends.  Coastians need to give with their local reps and force these people to do something for the Coast and its  people and businesses.

I am afraid that my writing is falling on blind eyes….but that is not unusual.

Here We Go Again

The proponents of a cig tax increase are hitting the trail making their case for the tax increase.  They are showing up on most news or talk shows.  Of course, their argument is that they care about the children….which is BS pure and simple!

These cowards are looking to tax less than 25% of the population so they do not have to do it to the state’s best friend, big business.

Their lame arggument when hit with if everyone stops smoking your tax money will dry up and their reply is predictable, it will be offset by the health savings from Medicare.  That is lame at best, but then when you are dealing with a public that does not care about too much, that tactic will WORK.

When asked if the cost of cigs is too high, what would keep the people from going to another state to buy their smokes?  They say that it would be too expensive for the people to do so.  But of course the microsephalics have overlooked the internet.  As usual the “good old boys” have shown that they are oblivious to the fact that the worldwide web exist.

Sorry dipsticks….but smokers will get their smokes.

And the savings in medicare is a joke also…..the state is aging and with age comes catastrophic dieases and injuries and scuh…the savings will not be there.  The majority of the state is poor and with poverty comes bad health habits and medicare will be used….NO savings there.

The attaching of the smokes bill to the car tag bill was a ingenious move by the cowards trying to find a way to MAKE Mississippians accept the cig tax increase.

Bet the supporters of this political game would yell a different yell if the boats were taxed, after all it would only effect a small percentage of the population.  Or maybe tax people with Hummers or Escalades or other high end cars.

The argument that it will only effect a small percentage of the people is just political trickery.  It is lame…it is moronic and it will most likely be effective.

Will Mississippians be fooled yet again….most likely so!

Bad News For New Orleans

Bigger, higher and stronger levees cannot save New Orleans from the worst floods and the city remains vulnerable to a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, the National Academy of Sciences said on Friday.

New Orleans had the flood protection of a 350-mile (563 km) network of levees, I-walls and T-walls ringing the city when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005. The levees broke, flooding 80 percent of the city.

The hurricane killed about 1,500 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast and caused $80 billion in damages, making it the costliest U.S. natural disaster.

As Katrina demonstrated, “the risks of inundation and flooding never can be fully eliminated by protective structures no matter how large or sturdy those structures may be,” said the report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.

“Substantial risks” of living in flood-prone areas were never clearly communicated to residents before Katrina, it said, and simply rebuilding New Orleans and its hurricane-protection system back to pre-Katrina levels would leave the city vulnerable to another flooding disaster.

Large portions of New Orleans are below sea level, which makes it vulnerable to floods and storm surges from hurricanes. Located at the mouth of the Mississippi River delta, New Orleans is in close proximity to Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne.

The city’s levee system was tested again in September 2008, when a surge from Hurricane Gustav nearly overtopped a protective T-wall along New Orleans’ Inner Navigation Canal.

Let us pray that Katrina was a once in a lifetime occurance, if the Gulf Coast gets hit again anytime soon, then it will become a third world country.  It will lose the developement appeal.  Why build in an area that can be destroyed in less than a day?

You think times are tough now……another hurricane will show just how bad things can get.

Let us paray!

How Green Is Mississippi?

Earth Day has come and gone.  Coastians have been picking up litter and planting trees this week in honor of Earth Day and the Great American Cleanup and in anticipation of summer visitors.

In Biloxi the cleanup ran all week and continues today. On Friday teams from local organizations and the casinos spread out to clean the downtown and neighborhoods. The Biloxi Bay Chamber of Commerce installed recycling bins for plastic bottles and aluminum cans at the Biloxi Town Green and plan to install more downtown and throughout the city.

Was all this truly to make the Coast greener or an attempt to make a good impression on the nation’s governors?

The nation’s governors, many of whom will get their first look at the Coast when they attend the National Governors’ Association annual meeting at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, July 17 to 20.

This was a pretty good start, but more, much more needs to be done before the Coast is considered a green community.  But the efforts by Biloxi and other Coast cities is nothing more than an opportunity for Barbour to strut around and take all the credit for the recovery on the Coast.

If Mississippi truly wants to be a green state then the legislature has the power to make it so, but they WILL NOT!  To do so would be an insult to the corporations and business interests in the state.

Planting a tree and the placing of recycling bins is just ducky….but they are superficial attempts, NOTHING of substance.

Peace…out!

Did Company Mistreat Its Workers?

CNN recently did a report on the mistreatment of immigrant workers and two Mississippi companies are faced with lawsuits concerning the immigrants.

Two Mississippi companies deny allegations they lured foreign workers to the United States with false promises of good jobs then housed them in storage buildings.

Twelve Brazilians are suing Moss Point-based Knights Marine and Industrial and a subsidiary, Five Star Contractors LLC, alleging racketeering, breach of contract and fraud.

The workers, who came to Mississippi on temporary work visas, allege they spent thousands of dollars in travel expenses, but the high-paying jobs they were promised didn’t materialize.

Brian Knight, president of Knights Marine, denied the allegations in a statement to The Associated Press.

He calls the allegations false and the lawsuit frivolous.

Immigrants In The South

CNN has done a piece on the treatment of Latino immigrants in the South.

Low-income Latinos in the South have been routinely cheated out of wages, denied basic health protections and are victims of racial profiling, according to a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“This report documents the human toll of failed policies that relegate millions of people to an underground economy, where they are beyond the protection of the law,” said Mary Bauer, author of the report. “Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South.”

The report details stories of a Tennessee woman who says she was jailed for asking for her pay after working at a cheese factory, a bean-picker in Alabama who says his life savings were taken by police at a traffic stop and a rapist in Georgia who was not arrested because the suspect’s victim was an undocumented immigrant.

Forty-one percent of the people surveyed said they had experienced theft of their wages by employers. Forty-seven percent said they know someone who was treated unfairly by police. Seventy-seven percent of women surveyed said they have been sexually harassed by bosses, many saying that bosses used their immigration status as leverage.

Well the South has seldom been a friend to workers, even legal ones so this story should be no surprise to anyone.  Even the elected governments of ALL the people, have been unfriendly to workers.

Mississippi Gets A Tax Holiday

Consumers will not pay sales tax on clothing or footwear that costs less than $100 on July 31 and Aug. 1. Gov. Haley Barbour signed the bill into law earlier this month.

The Tax Commission has been working to assemble information on the tax holiday since the state enacted the exemption earlier this month, commission spokeswoman Kathy Waterbury said

Mississippi’s sales tax holiday is relatively limited, but it is designed to give consumers, especially parents buying back-to-school clothing, a break.

Exempting some items from sales tax once a year is not a new concept.

The District of Columbia and 13 states have tax holidays of their own. Alabama and Tennessee’s include computers and school supplies, while Louisiana allows up to $2,500 in purchases.

In Mississippi, cities receive a portion of sales tax collections. Cities that feel it will cost too much can opt out of the sales tax holiday next year.

Is this a good idea in this time of economic crisis?  This where the disconnect gets interesting……the state is broke….it wants to tax somethings…..and then give some money back…….unfortunately this is just a misdirection…..give the people something to think about and they can run other crap pass them ….unopposed.

It is a political game and Mississippians fall for it everytime…….

It Is A Cig Tax —-Again

House and Senate negotiators have been locked at an 11-cent impasse over how much to raise the state’s 18-cent per pack cigarette tax.

Heading into the meeting, both sides appeared to be calling on the other for compromise, though no one was hinting at what the tipping point could be.

Senate conferees have offered a tax of 64 cents – the average of Mississippi’s surrounding states.  The House is proposing 75 cents.

In a statement released Monday, House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, argued that the car-tag dilemma is among the reasons for the House’s proposed 75 cents a pack.

“Car tags, the Medicaid deficit, other beneficial programs and better health for smokers who choose to quit are unique advantages for enacting a higher cigarette tax,” he said. “Opinion polls show voters overwhelmingly approve of such action.”

It is all so pathetic….the state is still giving away the farm to businesses and then try top make up for it by taxing the things that the workers indulge in , in their off time.  Before you support this type of game, ask yourself what happened to the hundreds of millions that is to come from the cig companies through the lawsuits?