Thursday, October 18, 2007

Taxes are boring.

The onslaught of Sentinel articles about how awesome Donnelly is continues!

Today's entry is called Donnelly sets foreclosed home as backdrop for tax debate. It's really really fucking boring.

There's a dual tax rate in Fitchburg for homes and businesses, you see. And there's a shift thingy. Donnelly backs a 137 percent shift, while Wong supports a 136 percent shift! Oh my god! That's an incredibly huge difference!

To wit:
Under the 137 percent shift, the owner of a $219,934 house pays a yearly bill of $2,585. Under Wong's plan to shift 136 percent, the same resident's tax bill would increase by $5.18 a year.
Wait... five bucks???

I probably have five bucks in change in my couch! This is worth a press conference and newspaper article? Wow, what an important issue to the people in town!

Rest assured, people of Fitchburg, Tom Donnelly wants to make sure you can afford that extra pack of cigarettes!
Donnelly said even though it is a small shift, any increase on residential property taxes is difficult for residents to swallow.

"I would keep taxes low to help homeowners in these hard times," Donnelly said
Thank you Tom! My five bucks will be well-spent on booze! It's actually very easy to swallow that way.

The business benefits Wong sees are similarly pretty minor...
Shifting to a 136 percent classification rate, as Wong supports, would save commercial businesses an average of $41.94 on a lot worth $332,085 and would save a $643,025 industrial lot owner $81.22.
Yay! That's like one or two printer cartridges! Go business go!

Really, I couldn't care less about all this. I wouldn't even have made this post except for this one bizarre statement in the article...
Donnelly said he is not opposed to shifting the tax rate toward a single-tax rate, but said now is not the time.

"You make changes in good times, not bad," Donnelly said.
Huh?

Tom, during good times it generally makes sense to keep things going the way they are (or change them for the better). During bad times is exactly the right time to make changes!

Also, what the fuck, Sentinel?

Every couple of days Donnelly says something totally insignificant and the Sentinel slobbers all over him like a two-dollar whore. Every article begins with "Donnelly blah blah blah." Every story presents his dumbass statements as something important and relegates Wong to a rebuttal role. It's getting to be really annoying.

It's not like I ever expected the Sentinel to back Wong. Or to be anything but totally biased against her, actually. But it's just getting ridiculous.

On the bright side, nobody in town actually gives a shit what the Sentinel has to say. So there's that.

6 comments:

1970s Abraham Lincoln said...

How the hell am I supposed to come up with an extra forty-three cents a month? Do you think I'm made of money, Lisa Wong?

Seriously, how does Donnelly reconcile his alleged opposition to tax increases when he has voted to increase taxes every single year that he's been on the council?

The Unicow said...

Good question!

Of course, he doesn't have to publicly reconcile that if nobody asks the question. You'd think someone (like, I don't know, a reporter or somebody) would ask it one of these times.

He's also openly stated during this race that he'll raise taxes the 2.5% allowed by law. But he opposes the 0.2% Wong talked about. Because these are hard times!

JustSayNoToDeSalvo said...

How about something less boring, Unicow?

The Seney story is confirmed. More at http://notodesalvo.blogspot.com/

This guy is bad news for Ward 4, and bad news for the City Council.

Wonder why the Sentinel hasn't picked up on this? They love to make Fitchburg look bad. Seney's troubles with the housing court and tax office should be right down their alley.

Oh, that would require actually REPORTING the news wouldn't it.

Cheers

fitchburg-shuffle said...

Screw this tax bullshit! I saw something on the news last night that really matters.

The price of hops has risen dramatically. That means the cost of beer will go up. That to me is a much more important cost increase than our friggin taxes! Something really needs to be done about this!!!!!!!

Really Rachel said...

fitchburg-shuffle,
Easy fella. Simple solution. Grow your own.
Shalom!

fitchburg-shuffle said...

I'm trying but I can't get the plants to..

Oh wait, wrong plants. I have no idea how to grow hops.