Revolting
Dont BURN it, RETURN it. The Knoxville News Sentinel is reporting that WE, the TAXPAYERS overpaid our taxes by $1.3 billion in this budget year. In their words, the “State will have money to burn.” This is OUR Money and we should get part of this overpayment back!! We have heard rumors that they are talking about giving less than $100 million back to the taxpayers in the form of a temporary reduction in food taxes. This is UNACCEPTABLE. We have overpaid by $1.3 billion. The refund should be AT LEAST $400 million.
Please act TODAY and Click HERE to EMAIL Speaker Naifeh, Speaker Ramsey, and Governor Bredesen. The General Assembly will be making the final decision on the State Budget in the next few weeks. Make sure the taxpayer’s voice is heard. Tell them Don’t Burn it, Return it.
May 9th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Those that desperately wish for a State Income tax for the children must be quite flummoxed.
Either refund it to the people or put it in an emergency only fund.
Don’t pork it out.
It is time to see what Speaker Ramsey is made of. Unfortunately we already know about Speaker Naifeh.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:31 am
In Oregon it’s called the “Kicker Tax” and is usually refunded to the taxpayers evenly across the board at the end of the biennium.
Meanwhile our crook-of-a-Governor is trying to steal the Corporate Kicker to fund other bogus socialist programs on his agenda. Like financing his latest “domestic partners” bill, which essentially grants special rights to sexual deviants.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:51 am
In a way it’s nice to remember one of the more fundamental reasons Pink Pistols was founded – to ensure that knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing bigots would, from time to time, be somewhat startled as they wandered the street in rusted out trucks with their drunken buddies looking for some “deviant” to beat or kill…and stumble across one that doesn’t quite fit the “easy mark” that bullies , cowards, and bigots naturally seek out.
Same sex marriage is far from special rights – it is quite simply placing same sex couples on the same legal grounds as every opposite sex couple, and ensuring this strange thing called “equality before the law”.
In most states, if I am hospitalized or incapacitated, it is problematic if my partner will be able to visit me or participate in decisions regarding my care. In most states, should I pass after a long and successful life, the default setting is my partner will be left destitute or unless my family is feeling charity, lose half of the net worth we’ve accumulated over the years, and quite possibly be hurled out of the home we’ve sweated over and paid for over the years. If we have children, we must investigate the laws state by state that we travel through to ensure the local CPS-equivalent doesn’t make off with the kids. If we fall in love with a non-citizen, the fact that we are in a committed relationship is not enough to ensure our beloved will not be deported at the vaguest whim of authority. This is by no means a comprehensive list of the little inequalities of “domestic partnership”, let alone those states without even that minimalistic “separate but equal” half-way and half-hearted step to simple equality. The list of ugly little differences goes on and on, but the average heterosexual is blithely blind at best to this – because it quite simply doesn’t affect them or those that they love.
Freedom isn’t free, and neither are little concepts like equality before the law – and it seems kinder to extend benefits to one previously neglected group than to withdraw them from a group that already has had and enjoyed them for many years.
Who folks like or don’t like or think god told them to hate is their own business, so long as they keep their hands to themselves and refrain from attempting to legislate whatever peculiar variety of hatred their preacher has told them is the one allowed bigotry.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:19 am
gay_cynic,
So because I’m not sexually attracted to men, I have the right to marry one?
Marriage is not a right.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Flip it around for the “equality check” – because I’m not attracted to a woman, I have the right to marry one? Does not compute.
Try the old miscegenation laws for a closer parallel (“thou shalt not marry and/or fool around outside ones race”) that SCOTUS tossed out a generation ago (Loving vs Virginia 388 USC )on the grounds that it violated the 14th Amendment addressing equality before the law.
Under this precedent, the constitutional course offers two paths (though I will admit a preference) to equality before the law – either the Courts and the assorted legislative bodies may systematically remove rights and privileges given the current privileged class (something I don’t particularly favor) or with equal validity modify statute to reflect the notion of equality before the law.
And, at base, so long as only consenting adults are involved it’s none of your, my, or anyone elses business WHICH consenting adults decide to marry which consenting adults – aside from the notion that we may generally wish to encourage committed relationships (opposite sex, same sex, whichever) as the participants therein tend to be more self-reliant than the unattached and cost less in terms of tax dollars.
Unless someone is holding some truly odd shotgun marriage, why should you care, anyway?
Oh yes. Equality before the law is a right.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
[…] we see what they spend that money they have to burn […]
May 12th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Marriage may not be a “right” (according to current law), but couples certainly receive some legal benefits due to it. Gay couples arent seeking anyone’s moral approval of their lifestyle. They simply want the same legal protections and “rights” that the law offers straight couples.
In other words, they arent looking for special privileges.. They’re looking for equal ones.
thorn
May 12th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I look at marriage this way. Stick your nose in mine and its likely to get broken. I expect the same.
Caveat: Abuse is not a marriage issue, Its a legal one.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
How did this thread get on that topic?
May 14th, 2007 at 10:46 am
You should look into passing a version of TABOR that would require revenues above expectations to be returned to the taxpayers. The shorter term for it is “TEL” (Tax and Expenditure Limitations).
Oregon also has version of this, as noted above.
Ohio passed some of this as a legislative initiative in 2006. We had it as a ballot measure for constitutional amendment, but they made the wording really complicated by trying to do it as both a state AND local TEL. That shifts too much power/cash-flow to/through the state level, so it was correctly shot down. The polling on it was so bad that the drafters belatedly realized their mistakes, pulled the issue from the ballot, yet got the legislature to pass the simpler state-only version. Hopefully, we’ll follow Colorado’s pattern: the legislative version for a couple years that will show voters it does work (and identify any final kinks in wordy, if any); then passed as a Constitutional Amendment.
Good luck!
http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/article/695
Gov Owen’s comments are correct for Colorado: it worked (and I lived in Colorado some and saw it work).
Gov Owen’s comments are only partly correct on Ohio’s verion. He says “Most important, those who crafted Ohio’s TEL amendment learned from Colorado’s difficulties and corrected the glitches that led to this fall’s vote. ” but the Ohio crafters of TEL introduced other problems.
I think Nebraska’s version was a very good, simple one for their 2006 issue. The sales pitch to voters may be difficult, because those in power don’t like TABOR/TEL limitations, so really really work on drafting good and simple words, tailored for your state’s constitution. And be ready for a tough media fight; including newspaper editorials that mischaracterize TABOR and scare monger about your TEL wording.
May 15th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Gay cynic
I understand your complaints and see an easy solution.
Give your partner power of attorney.
Problems solved.