Elaine Mejia Gives Puppets an Economics Lesson

Submitted by James on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 3:48pm.

Elaine Mejia, the director of the NC Budget and Tax Center, has a short-but-excellent post up over at the Progressive Pulse. In the comments she responds to Max Borders, professional social-media mogul for the Puppetshow's Civitas Circus. This is the most compact and definitive rebuttal I've seen yet to the market-extremists' lying about North Carolina's tax policy toward businesses. Bookmark it.

Those pesky researchers at Ernst & Young and the Council on State Taxation have done it again. They simply refuse to develop a methodology for ranking state business tax burdens in such a way that North Carolina's ranking will come out where the state Chamber of Commerce and the free-market fundamentalist "think tanks" like to claim that it is - as in at the top of list.

::

So don't be fooled by the hype about NC's taxes. We have a lot of things that need to be addressed in order to compete effectively in the global economy, such as educating the current and future workforce of our state. The one thing we don't need to do is cut taxes on corporations so that we can compete with those two states that ranked lower than we did - Delaware and Oregon.

Plus this sweet comment in response to another Puppet.

We here at the BTC will stick with the reliable census bureau’s data which, in its latest round of data, showed NC ranked 35th in total taxes as a percentage of personal income and 33rd in total state and local taxes per capita. As I said before, if you want to say that NC government is too big just because you think it is then that’s fine but don’t try and “prove” that we’re too big by comparing us to other states because no credible data ever shows that.

Point already noted.

Submitted by Paige_Michael-S... on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 8:36pm.

Comparative analysis sucks, anyways.

As for "market-extremists," I would hardly consider the state Chamber of Commerce or many of the "think tanks" to advocate for true free market economics. After all, they tend to have very little problem with the N.C. Democrats' corporate incentives policy, which is the epitome of central planning.

Just had to make sure you don't offend my libertarian sensibilities.

Brunette's picture

Sensibilities? HA!

Submitted by Brunette on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 8:41pm.

If I thought libertarians actually had sensibilities, I'd certainly be anxious to offend them.

Bring it.

Submitted by Paige_Michael-S... on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 8:47pm.

n/t

Brunette's picture

Still no evidence

Submitted by Brunette on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 8:51pm.

of sensibility -

Ya ain't got the stuff.

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BlueNCtv

Thanks, LoftT. This is hilarious.

TrueMeckDem on Myers Park Pat

"My opinion of Pat has changed over the years. I used to think he was truly a man of the people but the longer he has been mayor, the less I think of him.

As with most cities, Charlotte has three political parties: Dem, Rep, and Chamber of Commerce. Pat is definitely the puppet of the COC here. What is good for business is good for Charlotte and Pat ... very personable guy, he has gotten a bunch of Dems in these parts to vote for him but I don't trust him."

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