Heyyy! This isn’t right. ETV put out a press release about all the stuff S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin had to say this morning — but there’s been nary a peep out of them about all the smart stuff I said on the show last week.
Somebody really dropped the ball, obviously. I wonder who?
Related Posts
What possible news or other information of any value do government radio, television and newspapers deliver to the public that for-profit commerical media companies are failing to provide?
Lee, they provide the big-government propaganda that the drive-by media somehow forgot, and they use our tax money to bring it to us even though probably no more than 1% of South Carolinians ever watch that stuff. Aah, the great and amazing benefits of big government!
As for all the “smart stuff” Brad supposedly said it would seem that a certain someone has a vastly exaggerated opinion of himself that’s decidedly unsupported by reality.
“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”
John Lennon
Going to steal Bill’s thunder again (last word), but check out this link in the Washington Post.
OK, it worked on AOL– here is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?referrer=emailarticle
Charlotte has a its own local government TV station. This cable TV station, which just pipes out the party line across Mecklenburg County, costs the taxpayers $5,000,000 a year.
Don’t tell Bob Coble, or he’ll be wanting a Just-a-Penny tax increase to buy one for CopyCatColumbia.
That pointless article on Joshua Bell was more coverage than The Post gave to the war in Iraq.
Tell me again why these great musicians need government subsidies for their symphony salaries, on top of the $300,000 or so they make recording and touring?
I would like for us to send a manned space ship to Mars, and I would like to send Lee in it. After all, he is an engineer, and brilliant in every field. I’m sure he would get along fine there.
No surprise that a “liberal” would choose the Red Planet for a penal colony.
Silencing debate and locking up dissenters is what the modern socialistic liberal is all about.
Fox News is the only channel anyone could ever need, right guys?
The commercial TV guys and newspapers (gasp!) receive way more government support in the way of tax loopholes than public broadcasting does.
Can you actually name those “tax loopholes”, or simply chant the anti-business smear?
How is letting a business keep the money they earned the same as taking their money and giving it to a government station whose own audience won’t support it financially?
Well, according to The State newspaper and other sources…newspapers get a special break– no sales tax on newspapers, and no tax on newsprint.
Commercial guys get a tax break on their equipment purchases, property taxes, and advertising, free use of the public airwaves– not to mention all the money they rake in by jacking up their ad rates around campaign time.
That’s fine– but keep it in perspective. SC taxpayers give more away to newspapers and TV stations through these breaks than to public tv.
You’d be right. If we include all the loopholes out there on the sales tax (including the two you cite regarding newspapers), it adds up to about a billion.
Our position has been to take it all on at once, as part of comprehensive tax reform — sales, income, property, fees, everything.
Make the system as a whole make sense, instead of a tax cut here, a tax increase there, a special exemption for pretty much everybody in one way or another.
That’s why we have opposed any kind of tax increase — except the cigarette tax, which we want raised for nonrevenue reasons (you can burn the money for all I care, as long as we’re pricing cigarettes a little more out of the reach of kids) — and any kind of tax cut. We say they may very well be good ideas — for instance, if we ever get DOT reformed, it will be high time to hike the gas tax to fund years of neglected repairs — but nothing else should be considered in a vacuum.
Making tax changes here and there, according to which wheel is squeaking loudest, is how our system got to be the mess it is.
The cigarette companies already negotiated a lump sum tax increase in the form of the Tobacco Settlement, which they paid for by adding 58 cents to the price of every pack of cigarettes. It was an illegal, corrupt deal whereby politicians could conceal a huge tax increase.
This state used to run the entire public school system on a 1% sales tax. Then they added another 1% to build an entirely new system for the black students. Now we have 6% as the base, one of the highest income taxes in the country, and confiscatory property taxes.
Government at all levels is awash in money. In 2005, the state took in $1.1 BILLION in unplanned, unbudgeted revenue from the booming economy. Tax rates should have been reduced to return that money to the people. Instead, our crooked government blew every cent on junk to buy votes for themselves.
The only “loopholes” named by mark g are the special tax exemptions received by newspapers.
Journalists argue that even a 1% tax on newspapers is enough to squelch free speech. How much harm do they think all higher taxes are on other businesses?