SALES TAXES AND THE DEFICIT….Apparently some California legislators are proposing that in order to tackle our $35 billion budget deficit we should expand the state sales tax to cover services as well as goods. In today’s LA Times, professional tax fighter David Doerr says that’s a bad idea: it would be an administrative nightmare, it’s inflationary (!), it would harm the business climate, etc.
But out of 500 words and with six separate reasons for opposing this plan, he does not manage to breathe even one word about the worst aspect of the whole thing: sales taxes are regressive, so increases fall disproportionately on the poor.
Oh well, at least he doesn’t pretend there’s anything compassionate about his conservatism.
