Unconstitutional
Regardless of what state income tax plan is used, it will involve Tennesseans paying more overall in taxes initially and likely a lot more in the future. Who pays what initially under a particular income tax plan is meaningless in the long term, as the tax will be with us forever along with politicians constantly modifying it. Considering the state budget has doubled in the past 10 years, do you think the state has a spending or revenue problem? And then there is the matter of the state income tax being unconstitutional. In the 1931 Evans v. McCabe case, the Tennessee State Supreme Court struck down the state income tax as unconstitutional and subsequently used that ruling in a tax case in 1960 and 1964.
Although many who favor an income tax claim that a majority of Tennesseans also support one, these same people take the contradictory position that the people should not be allowed to vote on the issue. For the sake of argument, even if the state income tax were constitutional, I believe the people should be the ones to decide the issue by a constitutional amendment since it is a new avenue of taxation that involves a lot of their money.
The fact that a significant number of Tennessee legislators are against the people voting on the issues such as the state income tax shows how they no longer represent the people. If legislators cannot agree on how to raise taxes or if they pass the state income tax and it is struck down again as unconstitutional, then they will be forced to do what they should have been doing all along: taking the last budget and adjusting it according to the revenue estimated to be collected.
Given the amount of revenue received each year is almost always significantly more than the previous year, the "cuts" you hear about from the legislators are largely reductions in the amount of proposed increases. Some legislators might try to inflict as much damage as possible on Tennesseans when constructing a budget in a desperate attempt to gather public support for more funding but you can take care of these politicians when you vote on election day.
Andrew Norris
Knoxville
Card Corrected
Thank you for displaying attention to detail on my business card. The mistake in spelling can be credited to the company that printed my cards, but obviously I did not catch the mistake until I had handed out an embarrassingly large number of my cards.
For your gratification, I am sending you some updated and corrected cards in the hope that they may provide an equal amount of amusement among your staff. Thanks again for your inspiring attention to detail.
Nelson Willis, Gambling Free Tennessee Alignment
Brainwashing
I pick up Metro Pulse because I like News of the Weird. The journalistic style is far too hip for me. But I like movie reviews; I like good movies, and I like to see bad ones panned. Perhaps a critic reviewing a critic is a bit much, but here goes. Zak Weisfeld's review of Attack of the Clones is the worst, by far the worst, that I have ever seen. Six references to Mr. Lucas hating us. Why suggest such a thing? And to repeat it over and over, this is the simplest form of brainwashing. Say it enough times and a few people will go along with it, maybe. "...making us his bitches...", oh please. "...a plot that would put a doctoral level poli-sci class to sleep...", huh! And how this ties in with Romanian communism is beyond me. I am not interested in this movie but apparently Lucas is treading new ground. Best of luck to him.
Robert Minick
Knoxville
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