Alabama Votes No on Its Future
Alabama, my birth-place, voted no yesterday to a tax-plan pushed by their Republican governor. Now, if this were a G.W. Bush-styled tax plan that increases the tax burden on the poor while decreasing it on wealthy corporations, I’d cheer this defeat.
But this plan was different.
I probably disagree with Gov. Riley on almost everything except the wisdom of his defeated tax plan. He made a moral argument to Alabamians. He pointed out what most Republicans refuse to acknowledge. He said Alabama’s past tax policies have favored big lumber companies at the expense of the poorest Alabamians. He made arguments based on the Biblical view that we have a duty to the poor. Now, that’s a Republican who makes some sense for a change.
The money was to be used primarily for education, and would have improved Alabama’s dismal placement in those nation-wide rankings. But Alabamians succumbed to the lies of traditional Republicans and believed that any tax increase was a bad tax increase. They failed to see that re-organizing the tax burden was the right thing to do, and in that failure they voted no to their future. It’s very sad.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I moved to Huntsville last summer from South Dakota. Before moving SD I lived in Minnesota and Indiana. Alabama is a terrible place where salaries are low, consumer protection nonexistent, education severely underfunded, the majority of Doctors inept and poorly trained, my taxes are high and state social programs are nonexistent. Over the last 13 months I would come to realize why we are “second to last” and if not for Huntsville we would be in the run for last place with Mississippi as the state with the worst schools, highest dropout rate, highest obesity, highest percent of smokers, sickest children, and when I see our government and people speak of moral values and then cut education and child social programs first I just have to ask myself; “Why should I love here and pay 4% state income tax”? Folks down here need to see it is the 21st century just as our government need to explain where all my tax dollars are going. I believe in a hands-off government, but at the same time we need to be protected from some of the abuses consumers are subjected to.
Still, I believe these are good people and their intent is not meant to harm. it just that incompetency and lack of motivation seem to be accepted in Alabama. Well when I see a job listing for a saocial worker that pays $10/hour I can understand how we attract some of the more undesireable.