In a previous post, I suggested that the anti-tax move in the Sunbelt reflects, in part, white unwillingness to provide services for black fellow citizens. Two old friends of mine, both Deep South natives, immediately told me that should have been obvious.
The Washington Post has just run a story--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16443-2004Nov27.html?referrer=emailarticle--on the narrow defeat of an Alabama ballot initiative that would have removed two provisions in the state constitution that dated fromt the 1950s. The first provision guaranteed that the public school system would be segregated, and the second one rejected any right to public education, laying the foundation for closing the whole school system if the Federal Government insisted upon integrating it. The vote was very close, but the initiative did fail, and those provisions remain in the constitution. Opponents cited the danger that removing it might allow courts to force the state to spend more money on poor districts.
David...I can't speak for all of the Sunbelt, but as a resident of one part of it--Arizona in particular and the Southwest in general--I must say that there is at least one other explanation of the anti-tax move.
ReplyDeleteConservative legislators are fond of a strategy for "Killing The Beast:" make government and its influence wither by denying it tax money.
An interesting expression of resentment is coming from bloggers in the blue states. They complain that blue staters generate far more federal tax revenue than red staters, who receive a disproportionatrely large percentage of federal support.
For long URLs, run it through http://tinyurl.com/
ReplyDeleteYour link to the washington post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16443-2004Nov27.html?referrer=emailarticle)
becomes http://tinyurl.com/6hke5
Sweet, eh?
Except that I messed up my example. Try http://tinyurl.com/69dke for the Washington Post.
ReplyDeleteSorry.