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Yoon: Raise the sales tax to fight youth violence
By adamg on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 11:10am
Councilor Sam Yoon said yesterday that if elected mayor, he would fight to gain a half-cent increase in the sales tax in Boston to pay for new efforts to combat juvenile murders and other crimes in the city.
Yoon's made his proposal in an interview with Channel 4's Jon Keller. The proposal, which would require the approval of the state legislature and the governor, would raise $35 million and would help bring Boston back to the best years of the "Boston Miracle," when the city went two straight years in the 1990s without a single youth homicide.
Yoon also called incumbent Tom Menino stale and said it's simply time for a 21st-century mayor, one who would act on things such as a Boston Finance Commission report that identifies $70 million in savings through "common sense" reforms:
Politicians, just like anything else, have a shelf life.
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Comments
So he needs $105 million?
So if Sam Yoon becomes mayor and we enact the FinCom's suggestions to save $70 million and then he still needs $35 million for youth safety? I asked him one time "How much is enough - just give me a number and what I will get for that number." I got a philosophical discourse - but no number or objective goals - I think the answer was effectively there will never be enough.
So let's see - by my count so far we have:
25% increase in the sales tax rate
15-20% increase in T fares
$65 million in new Boston property taxes that will probably end up on the residential tab because commercial is getting hit so hard
and that's before we pay for our multi-trillion dollar federal bailouts
I'm guessing fee increases should be coming soon (PS to City Hall - if you increase fees - could you at least start taking credit and debit cards? I'll happily pay the extra $1 so I don't have to carry a checkbook around)
Fellow hubsters - have I missed any other new taxes?
Results
Boston got results before when it provided resources to fight youth violence. I for one would have no problem adding an extra two or three cents to the cost of a sandwich at lunch if the money went to stopping the violence.
The final "S" is left off for Savings
You forgot, your humble Mayor promised, PROMISED, that your property taxes will go down if he is able to have a local option tax.
"Mayor Menino is once again pushing his local meals tax hike. He proposes adding a 1 percent increase on the tax which would go to the city. He promises that all the money would be used to cut property taxes ..." - Town Online
What, you don't believe him?
No
... and no. Do you?
I'll glady pay
I'll gladly pay a higher sales tax to restore programs that have already proven to reduce youth violence (community policing, street outreach workers, crisis intervention...). A penny for every $2 I spend on non-essentials for fewer dead kids seems like a bargain to me.
Not disagreeing, but at the
Not disagreeing, but at the same time, this isn't the strongest argument to make... I could think of 200 worthy uses of a penny tax on $2. So are you ready for 100% tax?
You can pay mine too - I only buy in NH and online anyway now
Because a) there's already plenty of money and b) if they can't stop the killings with the amount of money they currently extract from us they can't do it
Here's a few stats:
The CPI is up 28% over the past 10 years ($1.28 will buy you today what $1 would buy you in 1999)
The city budget 1999-2009 is up 58% or twice the CPI
Residential property taxes are up over 90% - and we've increased the housing stock by only about 2% (251,000 at the last census to 255,000 in 2008)
The city claims that 70% of their expenditures are for "personnel related expenses". That's about $1.7 billion - or just a hair shy of $100k per employee.
You are welcome to make a donation. Please don't do it on my behalf - I'm too busy bailing out banks and deadbeats that think it's OK to walk away from their mortgage even if they can pay.
Killings were down because the economy was so good
I am not crazy about Menino but these guys are handing the election to him without a fight. Killings were down because the economy was a lot stronger, not because of youth violence programs.
It's a typical Democratic political solution, the city gives you $300 of spending on a youth worker and some space for a few hours, while at home your parents are split up, your mom is working two shitty jobs. If you raised Mom's income by $10,000 wouldn't that be better?
Yoon's instinct is wrong, to raise taxes and hurt the economy (not much but even so), instead of demanding that the city economy gets going by reducing business favoritism and the state gets going by reforming business taxes and regs.
How Mayoral candidates use this medium
Where has Sam Yoon used this medium to provide communications back and forth for the people to comment or ask questions?... for example, here's a Kevin McCrea blog http://electkevin.blogspot.com albeit limited too.
I saw Sam Yoon actually talking to people yesterday
It was amazing - he walked up Dorchester Avenue, shaking hands and actually engaging in, albeit brief, discussions with people.
For that matter, so did Flaherty, Menino and Yoon. I suspect anybody who had questions was able to pose them to the candidates.
Yoon actually got the idea
Yoon actually got the idea from Brian McGrory's whocame up with it while taking a piss at Fenway Park where he was inspired by the spend-happy ways of some desert city temporarily propped up by billions of dollars from WaMu and Fannie and Freddie and Countrywide.
http://internet128.com/index.php/2007/05/02/genius...
As city councilor Yoon had the chance to spend on prevention but instead he eventually sided with his fellow councilors and asked the Mayor to buy ShotSpotter, an acoustic body counter. You might argue that ShotSpotter is just a million bucks and Yoon wants many, many millions for prevention, but if the first million wasn't worth spending on prevention in Yoon's opinion, why would the rest of them be?
Yoon isn't qualified to be councilor and he has no business whatsoever being Mayor.