Since I can’t ask them what sort of comparison they made between the status quo and the guv’s proposal, and why they found the latter worse than the former, how about you, John? What do you think, and why?
verbenabeast, at least try to get my arguments correct, please.
Justify this statement in light of the fact that the tax code is a part of the Alabama constitution, and as such, can’t just be changed when it’s outdated, please. By this point, we are so out of date (read, tax code was written in the early part of the 20th century) that any “first step” is going to look like a total radical overhaul. I don’t see going through the trouble to have an amendment pass the house, senate, and public vote every time they want to adjust the tax rate a percentage or two. That’s my point. Any adjustment to the constitution will have to be a largish package plan, or else the legislature will simply kick it back with a “screw this. Too much work for nothing.” They’re reconsidering just the property tax portions right now because of desperation.
Actually, Hubbard is one of the only visionaries to hold that post in years…and it’s because the AEA is up against a wall. People are sick of tenured deadwood teachers, proration every year, lack of school supplies, and decomposed, outdated textbooks. Better an education reform plan he helped write than one that would have been (and will be) forced on them eventually.
So you think the earmarking scheme laid out before there were such things as, say, computers, has anything at all to do with today’s budgetary needs, and when they run out of money, they should just run out, because what was good enough for your grandfather’s grandfather ought to be good enough for today’s kids?
I ignored this because I’m not going to get into a battle of authoritative appeals. I could provide you with dozens of stellar quotes that support the plan, including personal testimonials from three former heads of the Alabama Public Library Service, several teachers (tenured and otherwise,) a professor or two, and Dr. David Bronner, who has already proven his economic acumen in this state to the tune of $24 billion in monetary and diversified assets, including a square block of Manhattan, but I won’t. Such a thing is non-productive, and we’d play Dueling Quotations all day.
No dear, that was another poster altogether. I said it is perfectly understandable why Alabama Power was not being handed a tax increase. Do try to keep the arguments straight.
Actually, according to most sources, only those who make more than $40K would have had a tax hike, so your only increase would have probably been in property tax. And that’s ridiculously low, regardless if you own a $50,000 house or 100,000 acres of timberland in Choctaw County.
The best interests of the state lie in remaining with a late-Reconstruction-era tax system and budgeting scheme? Fascinating. Better the devil you know, huh?
Hubbard? A visionary? Please. If the AEA is up against a wall, he pushed them there. He’s been the head of the damn thing for 20 years. If people are truly sick of “tenured deadwood teachers, proration every year, etc.” why on earth would you recommend letting Hubbard script the solution to those problems? He’s a substantial portion of the cause of many of those problems you list.
In this case, the devil I know is infinitely preferable to the devil I know with an extra $1.2 billion in discretionary money, yes.
You’re right. “Visionary” is a loaded and likely inaccurate term. The second part of my statement is closer to the truth, I think. Better a plan that he and the AEA were able to influence than a plan that will be forced on them eventually.
And “discretionary money” is a loaded and misleading term as well. There were mechanisms in place for the oversight of how that money was spent.
The way I see it is that there were two ways to go about it: 1) untie the Gordian Knot that is Alabama’s constitution. Hold a constitutional convention, scrap all the bullshit amendments cluttering the document (several hundred at last count, right?). Rewrite the thing with foresight and planning for the next century, allowing provisions for the relatively easy revisitation of the amendments later, or 2) circumvent that process and add an amendment which addresses all the same reforms, but doesn’t rely on the mess of a constitutional convention. Riley chose the second option, probably because a full-scale constitutional convention, while badly needed, has never been popular in the state. It would be a long, drawn-out, expensive, messy proposition. A new amendment on the scale of the Tax Plan, while being messy and drawn-out itself, was a model of economy and efficiency compared to the monstrous undertaking of rewriting the constitution.
Now both avenues are closed, and any changes that occur will be ill-thought, reactive, and made on the spur of the moment.
Business as usual for the great state of Alabama.
If you’re telling me that Riley hasn’t thought through a fallback plan in case his tax plan failed and that he’ll have to engage in a series of knee-jerk reactionary moves in an effort to keep the state afloat fiscally (a la Don Siegelman and the lottery), then I’ve lost a lot of faith in the man as a governor.
Well, he’s been saying it all along…tax plan or cuts. Looks like it’s going to be the cuts.
And then** Ogre** stupidly said…
“Well, he’s been saying it all along…tax plan or cuts. Looks like it’s going to be the cuts.”
September 12 2003 Headline Birmingham News
PRYOR TELLS CITIZENS TO BUY GUNS AND BUGLAR ALARMS IN AFTERMATH OF GOVERNOR"S TAX DEFEAT.
Montgomery. People should buy home alarms and handguns or take other steps to protect themselves because looming budget cuts will erode the state’s ability to protect them from criminals, the state of Alabama’s Attorney General Bill Pryor said Thursday.
Really** Ogre**, have you and your Riley no shame?
Colorful sort, aren’t you?
Wonder what’s on TV.
What’s on TV? Now now little Ogre, are you being flippant? Give it up goodbuddy, you and your kind of thoughtless thinking belong back in the 20th century. Back when effete academicians and pseudo-intellectuals led our nation’s easily-led idealistic young hippie folks to believe in the false premiss of **“educated class superiority” **.
What’s on TV? Look closely. See. The people of whom this nation has always been about rise en masse against your illogical reconstructs of reality.
Ah shoot! I now see that you will never see.** May God bless you**.
Man, this is fun. Is English your first language, or did you come by all this drafty, self-satisfied circumlocution honestly?
**“drafty, self-satisfied circumlocution” Not bad, Ogre, not bad.
But a bit clumsy and incomplete. Try…
…colorful, drafty self-satisfied circumlocution with nuance and content and truth.
How does an ignorant man recognise a wise man when he sees one?
_______________________________ *Paul Bear Bryant 1972***
____________________________________ :)Not necessarily. Last night on a Birmingham news station a Riley aide said that they will revisit the lottery option.
I’m rapidly losing faith in this man.
Of course it is. “Yee haw” were Milum’s first words.
Then he learned to say “Pass the Jack Daniels”, and has been like this ever since.
Here is a born and raised Montgomery, Alabama girl talking: I VOTED NO, AND THAT VOTE WON BY DOUBLE.
Anyone who voted yes is an imbecile. Over 800,000 people can’t be wrong.
Peace Lady
"…Then he learned to say “Pass the Jack Daniels”, and has been like this ever since."
Very funny Desmostylus, but not funny. I was weaned on a fine Tennessee sippin’ whiskey named George Dickel. Earlier this year I visited the Dickel brewery in Tennessee and found out that the Dickel family hadn’t made any whiskey in over two years and are selling to consumers out of existing stock. I don’t know what to do. Damn it, they were probably overtaxed.
By the way,** Aussie**, is mommie government taking good care of her sweet helpless little children in a nice cradle-to-grave way? I hope so, because the last I heard was that your economy was on the skids and sliding.
Anyway, thanks for the troops in Iraq.
Seriously. With all due respect, do you have a better plan? I mean, what’s left? Simple budgeting will not work, IMHO, because we’re facing a huge deficit, and the structure of the constitution is such that merely tightening our collective belts will have minimum effect. What exactly are we to do?
Secondarily, how do we get those reforms that virtually everyone here, at the very least, has agreed we need? Keep in mind that ONLY another amendment or a constitutional convention can change the tax code.
Peace Lady, I say this with the utmost respect: if you can’t intelligently add to the discussion, go fuck yourself.
If any of that is true, then perhaps you shouldn’t say things like this:
Huh? News to me. But then again, you probably can’t tell the difference between Australia and Albania, so it doesn’t really surprise me that you’d think that.
Whoa whoa whoa there, kid.
I voted yes but I don’t think the people who voted no are imbeciles.
If you want to appeal to the Majority is God idea, remember that for many years the majority of people on earth believed the earth was flat.
Or, how many years ago, the majority of white Southerns believed Jim Crow was just a-okay.
Milum: Aussie jobless rate at 13-year low
Idiot.
Pardon me** Aussie**, I got my stats from the CIA. They said that your unemployment rate was about six and a half per cent and things didn’t look so good this year because of the great drought of 2002. Sorry. I’m glad to hear that my mateys down under are doing fine.
And atticus, you were absolutely right about the biased nature of the ACT tests that I guoted and then so casually compared the quality of state education in Alabama with North Carolina. I apologize. I am still looking for some favorable facts to back up my case.
Let this be a lesson to all of us. I can’t run North Carolina and Australia from Alabama. And yall can’t run Alabama from North Carolina and Australia. So let’s make a pact and keep our big noses out of each other’s business.
Agreed?