More on Taxes

Mark "Balgar" Golden comments regarding my post on spending & taxation in New York State. 1. Tolls on the Thruway should be gone. They should have been gone in, like, 1986, but I'll take now. 2. A sales tax doesn't reflexively get my goat, but the counties should be forbidden from adding to the state's sales tax in any way. I can live with Albany's 4.25%. Hell, raise it to 5%. But I think the counties should not be permitted to DOUBLE that rate. 3. Sales tax should be abolished on food, OTC meds, and clothes under $150 or so. That would protect the poorest from the most insidious regressive taxation. 4. You can't be punitive about property taxes. Sales taxes should be at least capped at their current levels, and government should figure out a way to spend within its means. Maybe we don't need a Rolls Royce Medicaid system when a Chevy drives just as well. New Yorkers already pay state taxes and fees that are 72% higher than the national average. 5. Income taxes should also be limited. A flat 5-6% should do just fine. 6. I agree that we need fundamental health care reform, and some sort of universal coverage. Whether that is done privately or through a single-payer plan is for people with more time on their hands to figure out. I despise the idea of hospitals or health insurance-for-profit, because I think it shunts patient care to job #2. I also don't think a Canadian system would work in the US. I don't want to replace one flawed system for another. I don't, however, think that the government should pay for one's education unless one really deserves it - either by need or talent. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The State of New York is cold, hard evidence of that truth.