
{"id":13102,"date":"2010-10-14T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=13102"},"modified":"2010-10-14T09:31:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:31:00","slug":"endorsement-letter-sales-tax-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/10\/14\/endorsement-letter-sales-tax-too-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Endorsement Letter: Sales tax too much"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several prominent groups in town are supporting the proposed sales tax increase for Orange County residents. Sure, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a small increase; but all added up, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have an 8 percent sales tax, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too much.<\/p>\n<p>An 8 percent sales tax is crushing for everyone, not just homeowners. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard the rhetoric about how small the one-quarter percent increase is, and how it is justified to reach our goals. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had plenty of chances to reach our goals through our exorbitant taxes over the years. <\/p>\n<p>Our neighbor to the north, Virginia, has a 5 percent sales tax and their governor recently stated that, fiscally, they are doing just fine. Delaware has no sales tax. <\/p>\n<p>The argument states that part of this increase in the sales tax will go towards \u00e2\u20ac\u0153economic development.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d My impression is our elected officials believe in restraining development and highly regulating the process businesses must go through to locate here. They probably do this because they believe their constituents want it that way. Our land will stay pristine. <\/p>\n<p>All you need to do is thin out your rulebook and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get economic development. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need a tax increase to spend on advertisements to lure businesses, only for them to discover there are still mountains of red tape and plenty of hoops to jump through.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simple. If you want to stimulate economic activity, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t raise taxes! A perfect example is our tax-free weekend. Did you notice how busy the stores were? <\/p>\n<p>Eight percent might be the breaking point for some, who may restrain their shopping or shop elsewhere. When taxes are raised too high, revenue starts to fall. A quarter of a percent may turn out to be a heavy straw; let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not break the camel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back.<\/p>\n<p>As Groucho Marx sang in the movie Horsefeathers: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Your proposition may be good, but let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have one thing understood. Whatever it is, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m against it!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Terri Tyson<br \/>\n<em>Chapel Hill<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several prominent groups in town are supporting the proposed sales tax increase for Orange County residents. Sure, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a small increase; but all added up, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have an 8 percent sales tax, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13102"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13147,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13102\/revisions\/13147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}