10-18-2008, 01:50 PM
AlphaDog wrote:
[quote=karsen]
I didn't say eliminate taxes, did I?
Excuse me, but when I hear about millions of our countries dollars going to help wooden arrow makers in Oregon (for example) I kinda get the feeling they're not doing the best job they could with our money.
I'd be the last one to say there's not plenty of room to slash waste, but I'd like to suggest you come up with a better example for use in your argument. That particular addon essentially reversed an error, when toy wooden arrows got incorporated in a bill targeting expensive archery arrows. The loss of revenue amounts to about $200,000 a year. Here's an exerpt of an article about it:
"They say a tax on arrows was meant for more expensive archery arrows and is untenable for makers of toy arrows that may cost only about 30 cents apiece.
One of the leading makers of toy arrows is Rose City Archery Inc. of Myrtle Point, Ore.
The company's president, Jerry Dishion, said the tax break was not aimed at arrow makers, but at camp programs and Scouting groups that found the tax made the toy arrows cost-prohibitive.
"Rose City Archery does not make one penny on this," Dishion told The Associated Press. "We do not save one penny."
The beneficiaries of the bill are children in archery programs across the United States, Dishion said, including schools, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Christian camps.
Many youth programs have discontinued archery because of the tax, Dishion said.
The tax break is one of dozens included in the bailout bill as part of an effort to entice those who had rejected it in the House to change their votes. The House approved the bailout bill on Friday, two days after the Senate.
"This is how Washington works," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "A big pot of pork is their recipe for final passage."
Ashdown's group labeled arrow provision the No. 1 "tax sweetener" in the bailout bill.
Jay McAninch, president of the Archery Trade Association, said toy arrows should never have been included when Congress changed how U.S.-made arrows were taxed in 2004. The law imposed a flat tax of 39 cents per arrow - a fee that more than doubled the cost of toy arrows.
While arrows for hunters or adult archers can cost $8 or more apiece, toy arrows sell for as little as 30 cents.
About six companies nationwide would be affected by the tax loophole, said McAninch, who said he did not ask for the provision to be included in the financial rescue bill, either.
"We had no idea that this provision, which had been laying there for over a year, would be picked up, and we had no idea that anybody would throw it into this rescue package," McAninch told the Bend (Ore.) Bulletin.
Dishion hopes there is one positive outcome from the controversy.
"Now that the tax is removed, we hopefully will be able to get these (archery) programs back implemented again," he said."
Here's a link to the entire article:
http://www.eastoregonian.info/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=48&ArticleID=83562&TM=72971.8
That's interesting. I wasn't aware of the follow up. Why do we have extra taxation on arrows in the first place? (I'll read the entire article later, I'm heading out the door now.)
And BL, if our government can fund two wars (with who knows how much waste going to the corrupt governments in Iraq and Afghanistan) and then spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a "Wall Street bail out" then I'm pretty sure there's money for basic services. I bet if we cut out the wasteful spending we'd have MORE than enough for universal healthcare. Heck, maybe even enough for free College educations for everyone.
