Well, heck, I’m an expert at everything (just like ‘most everybody else), so here goes:

First, were I the the Legislature, I would have voted against the bill no matter how good it was, just because of our temporary emperor’s arrogance in insisting that only *his* bill could even be considered.

Second, the whole purpose of the proposed tax reform — to keep people from being forced out of there home by huge annual tax increases — is diluted to the point of being meaningless by giving the tax cut to businesses and all other property owners.

Third: The wimpy legislators who voted in favor of the bill not because they thought it was a good one, but because their master told them to should be run out of town on a rail (and, yes, tar and feathers first if we have enough).

Fourth, a former Idaho Supreme Court justice has said that (as many of us suspected) King James did not have the authority to tell the legislative slaves that they could consider only his bill; rather, he could limit them only to one topic, but not to one bill.

Fifth: I don’t know how much that session cost us (Note to the B.G.: Can you find out?) but it’s one more thing to waste our taxes on. OK, five is enough.

Next expert?

BG, it is not hard to understand. Big business wins again. We are so backward here in Idaho that most of the politicians and most of the voters believe in that “trickle down” nonsense that was so soundly disproven during and after the Ronald Ray-guns administration.

My 2006 property taxes (current year’s estimated taxes on my assessment notice) on the home I live in went down 13.9% from 2005 when they increased the homeowners exemption from 50,000 to 75,000 earlier this year. I expect they will go down further with this new gimmick, but it is still a massive tax shift from those who can afford it to those who can’t. The sales tax is regressive. Repeal it.

And BG, why did we hear nothing from Team Dave and the City Council or Ada County Comissioners? Didn’t they have an opinion? Can they possibly be that cowardly?

Well what can one say? This state just keeps voting in Rebulican’s that are controled by the big money in this state. Just watch good old Butch he’ll run away with the Govenor’s seat.
Wouldn’t it be funny if people came out to vote and acually ousted these bunch of crooks.

Mo–
Is that your “two sense worth?”

The reason Team Dave and the City Council is silent is that they are too busy spending all the increased tax revenue they have been getting.

And making deals to get around the voters on convention centers, selling the library to developers and fixing rotten row house laws.

Gordon pretty much hits every criticism I have of this thoroughly crap legislation. It’s just a tax shift, not a break, and another hit on education from the Republicans. An un-elected governor just railroaded a poorly-considered bill through a cowed legislature controlled by a party that acts just as craven and unthinkingly as the Communist party in its heyday (what the party bosses say, goes) and the consequences of this will undermine and haunt us for a long time to come. The token “approval” vote we’ll get in November is yet another worthless sop thrown to the voters to make them think they actually have any say whatsoever in the process.

I keep hoping that this time will be the time their arrogance gets the better of them and the voters thoroughly purge their butts out of the Statehouse, but I hope that every year when they pull yet another stupid stunt or pass yet another big-business friendly little-guy hostile piece of legislation, and look what keeps happening.

Kudos to the heroic Democrats who had a better plan and fought the good fight all the way down to the bitter end. They had brass and courage and, as far as I’m concerned, better embody the true Idaho value of fearless independence than the spineless Republicans who allowed King Risch to take their manhood firmly in hand and squeeze. For once I’m damn proud to be an Ada County constituent. All you conservatives who think your straight “R” voting record represents some kind of “true Idaho” can truly and thoroughly shove it. (And hats off to the few Repubs. who stood their ground.)

Which reminds me– when the meagre property tax break you get from this is completely offset by the increased sales tax, along with the ever-rising cost of living, and you poor- and middle-class folks find your finances in ever more dire straits, but you still vote Republican because you care more about preventing the gays from marrying and the innocent fetuses from dying than your own economic well-being– don’t you dare make your way down to Boise city looking for help and aid. You got what you damn well deserved. Heartless? Yeah, but someone keeps voting these damnable idiots into office. They, and the rest of us, alas, will reap what they sowed.

Come on mojo spend the other 1 cent.

EDITOR NOTE–I think it was a mixed metaphor joke..”2 senses” as in SEE the future and it SOUNDS.

john – right on!

The sales tax increase doesn’t faze me one bit since it’s consumer driven and totally within our control. People simply don’t need to buy all the crap they do…it makes me ill to see such waste when we’ve got 50,000 people living in poverty in the Treasure Valley, but I digress.

You can save $1500 in sales tax by NOT buying a $25,000 car every year, and $12 in sales tax by using Grandpa’s old compass instead of buying a GPS at Cabela’s. John and Tam both posted examples of other ways in which people can save hundreds of dollars a year in sales tax. “Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without”.

Property tax however is different, it can’t be reduced through wise spending (you don’t get a discount if your kids are grown, if you don’t call the fire dept, etc.) Some folks who bought modest homes and paid them off early are now being forced to sell off adjacent lots (for infill) so they can afford to keep their homes. Other senior citizens are having to sell their homes altogether.

I’ve seen families move to Kuna because they can’t afford the taxes on the starter home they bought 15 years ago. I know another guy who went back to being a renter because it was cheaper than paying property tax. I’ve seen the property taxes on our home increase 500% in just an 8 year period and hate to think what it’s going to be when we retire.

If tax revenue can come from other sources, terrific. People who can afford to buy new cars every year and specialty clothes & gear from specialty stores can afford the 1% increase. Senior citizens and the working stiffs who don’t have that luxury should be guaranteed some security in knowing that they at least won’t be taxed out of the homes.

Junkyard got it right for discretionary spending. However, for a lot of people at the lower end of the economic spectrum, the word discretionary doesn’t mean much.

A single mom, with a couple of kids, working the low wages Boise and Idaho are famous for, and living in an appartment, will not see any benefit to the increase in the homeowners exemption, but will see her spending power decrease by another percent that she can ill afford.

Like all tax “reforms,” this one is really a tax shift. Sort of like rearanging room assignments at the Hotel California. No one gains unless some one else loses. In this case, as is so often the case, the ones who can afford it least will be the ones who get hit the hardest.