Alabama: We Like Last Place!

There is a nice discussion going on over at Plastic about Alabama rejecting the new tax increases to avoid amazing budget cuts, which I talked about in Republicans for Taxes and again in Sweet Home Alabama.

One of the good points is why were people outside of Alabama, like myself, so interested in what Alabamians have to pay for taxes. I thought it was interesting and worth commenting on for the same reasons that people all over the country like to talk about the "recall circus" that we Californians are going through. They are both interesting social/political situations which show a lot about a region.

Check out some of the pros and cons of rejecting higher taxes and cutting the budget:

• Laying off 4,600 teachers
• Offering early parole to 5,000 to 6,000 inmates
• Taking away Medicaid support from some nursing home residents
• Cutting state troopers' work to four days per week, and restricting their driving to 150 miles per day
• A program offering health insurance to low-income children has already been frozen.
• Budgets for health inspectors and textbooks may also be reduced.
• Services for those with AIDS, battered women, and sexually abused children are on the chopping block.

Again I want to emphasize that the tax hike was not just to save what little they had, but to make things they had better. Tax opponents told them to cut the budget. We'll see how they like it when they go to get health-care, education, police protection, or any one of the many social services that benefit every person in the state either directly or indirectly.

The ever eloquent MAYORBOB puts it perspective:

And, rightly or wrongly, they have decided not to change their tax code. Therefore, it's time for the rest of the nation to move on to something else they can point at that state and find to disparage. If the citizens of another state or municipality wish to act in such a way that social services are no longer offered in that state or municipality, so be it, and they become other points on the map that I am glad I do not live at.

Indeed. Now back to my own state circus...