Folks,

Nobody likes to pay taxrs; but they bring you the following: Steamtown NHS, Allagany Portage NHS, Golden Spike NHS, California State Railroad Museum, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Virginina Museum of Transportation ( I think).

Also many smaller grants and money incomes from Tea-21, local tourist tax grants and so on.

To say nothing of my own San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park and the whole National Park service with 291 sites across the country.

Preservation of historic and natural sites at State Parks across the nation. I could go on but you get the idea.

Ted Miles

And that's the rub, which is why equality in taxation is so important. If the Michigan law, as described, exempts large corporate operations like theater chains then it needs to be challenged on fairness. Remember, it wasn't the idea of paying taxes that put the tea in the harbor, it was the "who" and "why."

Rob

VMT is a private non-profit, not a state agency. They haven't received any state funds for several years due to budget cuts in Virginia. I think the most recent Legislative session did include some funds for 2007-2008.

Roanoke Chapter NRHS has been awarded, but has not yet received T-21 funds to start restoration on the fire-damaged Virginian Ry Roanoke passenger station. NS donated the building to them several years ago

A few worthy civic projects, among those you cited. It also brings the apparatus of order (police, courts).

Nobody is arguing that. Let me explain. In addition to be a a former medical assistance auditor, I recently had the somber task of being the foreman of a jury charged with deciding the guilt of a woman charged with infanticide. In addition to a brain lesion, the child had a scarred liver, and 18 EIGHTEEN broken ribs in all of three months of "life".

Guilty she was, but had unindicted help. There was testimony in court that the mother was on medical assistance, subsidized housing and has visits from "family services". Among others testifying, we can assume that the aunt that had four kids by 21, the oldest 8. She had 2 more by the time of the trial, when she was 27. Fair bet she was a heavy consumer of "public services".

This is just one little kid, brutalized every day of her life. No amount of spending will ever stop the death of a child born into that sort of moral squalor, but we are throwing 2 of every 5 dollars at welfare in my state. It doesn't solve any problem, other than employing people with commercially unviable majors and creating generational dependency.

If any other the places you mentioned could get 1/100 of 1 percent of that spending, their problems would be solved.

You can still walk on the Island ;)

KL

So what do you suggest, Mr. Superheater? Should we just throw these people away? I realize they are a drain on the system, but what is the solution? Better schools, better nutrition, better opportunities to earn a living wage? I keep asking people and politicians, but no one has yet offered a realistic solution.

Aw, heck, the whole thread's gonna get yanked by the moderators by the time I click "submit", but......

I believe the viewpoint of what we might call the stereotyped "Rush Limbaugh dittohead" is that "the system" should stop making it so distressingly easy for the cycle of poverty to continue. They don't balk at helping someone with an accidental "oops"; what they balk at is "the aunt that had four kids by 21, the oldest 8. . . 2 more by the time of the trial, when she was 27" and using taxpayer money to perpetuate this. Yes, "welfare reform" has done much to address this, but all it takes is politicians wailing about seniors and single mothers "having to eat dog food" and "won't someone think of the children?!?", and we're right back to Square One.

I live in a city where I am literally surrounded by the products of forty years of the "War on Poverty" and the "War on [Some] Drugs". The current "War on Terror" is a rip-roarin' success by comparison.

In order for tax dollars to be channeled to such things as museums, one has to make a compelling case to voters and the people they elect that Project Choo (or Project Red Barn, Project Lighthouse, etc.) is a more compelling cause for the common good than Project Doe-Eyed Urchins. We're always going to be on the losing end of that comparison. But one can often make a case that such a project will be handled more efficiently and successfully. Unfortunately, examples such as the CSRM and RR Mus. of Pa. are balanced out by such examples as Steamtown and the Texas State RR. If we can work harder to prove our pet projects are effective and efficient, we stand at least a chance in the long run.

As noted by Sandy in the previous message, we are now officially "flamingly off topic..... "

I don't plan on yanking the whole tread, but lets look elsewhere for additional amusement.

As always, your friendly moderator,

and before this tax could be implemented it's gone -- the Michigan House and Senate voted it out of existence this past week !

Too many small (for profit) businesses complained

Bob H