Daily Archive
Stories Posted on August 5, 2008
Make it a double: 2 drink tax referenda likely
Category: Alcohol Sales · State: Pennsylvania · Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Drink tax foes will submit a petition to the Allegheny County board of elections today, setting the stage for dueling ballot referenda in November on the controversial levy. Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation amassed far more than the required 23,006 signatures to get its measure on the ballot, said the group's attorney, Cris Hoel. The referendum, if approved by county voters, would mandate that the tax on poured alcoholic drinks be reduced from 10 percent to no more than 0.5 percent. County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and his allies on County Council oppose such a measure, saying that reducing or eliminating the drink tax -- which, along with a $2-per-day rental car tax, helps fund the Port Authority -- would require a property tax hike to compensate.
Boston Tax Party
Category: Taxes · State: Massachusetts · Source: Wall Street Journal
Massachusetts is about the last place one would expect a tax revolt, but that's what's brewing in Beantown. The state board of elections recently certified that citizen activists have gathered the 125,000 signatures required to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to eliminate the state income tax. The Small Government Act would repeal the 5.3% income and wage tax, as well as the state capital gains tax, which reaches as high as 12%. The ballot initiative would replace the $12.5 billion in taxes with . . . nothing. "One of the points here," explains Carla Howell of the Committee for Small Government that is driving the referendum, "is to force the state legislators to start cutting the bloated state budget." The political shock of having no income tax would force the pols on Beacon Hill to make the difficult spending choices they now refuse to make.
Assisted Suicide Initiative on November Ballot
Category: Right-To-Die · State: Washington · Source: KIMA-TV Yakima
Oregonians legalized assisted suicide a decade ago. Now, Washington may be the second state in the country to allow terminal patients to expedite their death. "I suppose if they made you a zombie, that they could take away all your humanity in order to relieve you of pain, put you in a coma practically," said Ginger Vetrano, who gathered signatures around the Tri-Cities to put the initiative on the ballot. Initiative 1000, better known as "Death With Dignity," boils down to a sick person's right to choose when he or she wants to die. It would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal prescription to patients with six months or less to live. "It's something I would want for myself and my mother and anybody else I loved," said Vetrano. If it passed, two doctors would have to independently verify that the patient is mentally competent to make the decision, and that no one has coerced him or her to choose to die early. Vetrano says it's a question of choice. "I think we're all autonomous people," she said. "I wouldn't want to make the decision for you, and I hope you wouldn't want to make the decision for me."