This past week, Q-line asked: Would you be willing to pay a half-cent sales tax increase to improve the county’s mass transit infrastructure? Here are your responses: “NO, I WOULD NOT. IT’S JUST A WASTE amongst the many wastes of the taxpayer’s hard earned money. Nothing will be solved anyway. There are just too many people in L.A., and nothing will change that. L.A. is a lost cause.”
“I AM NOT INTERESTED IN A HALF-CENT sales tax. I am in my 80s, and whatever that money is going to go for will never do anything for me. I will not even be around when this supposed project will be completed. So I am against paying. I don’t know why we have to keep paying half cent and half cent, and now the government wants us to pay one percent more for other things, which is just out of this world. I live on my social security, and I can’t afford all these half-cent and one-cent increases.”
“YOUR QUESTION OF THE WEEK ASKS IF I am willing to pay $8.75 sales tax on every $100 taxable purchase that I make, or $87.50 on every $1,000 purchase I make in Los Angeles County. When one considers that the governor is also in the process of asking for an increase, my answer is no. No.”
“TAXES ARE HIGH ENOUGH ALREADY AND with all the prices going up, we don’t need to raise taxes again. And besides, those idiots in the government will just waste the money anyway, just like they waste the money they get now.”
“YES, I AGREE. EVERYONE PAYING THE half-cent sales tax would benefit the whole community, and this way, not only people who travel here, but visitors and business people will be paying that half cent toward improving our conditions in Santa Monica.”
“THE MERE THOUGHT OF ANOTHER TAX increase makes my blood boil. How dare the greedy L.A. County Supervisors ask for more tax money when they mismanage and overspend current tax revenues. So I not only say no, but hell no, to any and all tax increases.”
“I’D LOVE TO SEE A LIGHT RAIL LINE TO the Westside. However, not one red half-cent sales tax increase will I pay until the Metro line takes off the noise-polluting travel ads, TVs, that were forced on riders without any public input. No one I’ve interviewed, including drivers, likes them. They ruin what could be a pleasant ride by interrupting thoughts, reading, napping, conversations, etc. Supervisor Yaroslavsky did not respond to a letter I sent asking why loud radios are prohibited and are subject to a $250 fine but TV ads are permitted, sometimes three to a bus. It’s impossible to sit anywhere you cannot hear them.”
“DO YOU SMELL SOMETHING, LIKE cunning politicians wanting another tax hike on top of how many already? This is right out of the Karl Marx playbook, break the middle class with taxes and you control the proletariat. The rich think they are invulnerable; the low-income care about essentially free housing. A subway to connect us to L.A., who wants to go there? Everything our leaders do is to take something away from us, no cars, parking, no smoking, no money in our pocket. The subway will make a few people really rich and the rest of us a lot poorer. Deal with the underlying problem of too many people infesting this area, and then you won’t need a half-billion dollar budget for towns like Santa Monica, and the dumb-way to the sea.”
“LET THE BIG, CORPULENT CORPORATE creeps pay for the transit projects, some of which we do not need, such as the Subway to the Tsunami, which might also ruin Wilshire Boulevard. Put more MTA buses on, especially on the 33-line. The MTA could also conserve some energy by cutting down on their over air conditioning. Some of the buses are like ice boxes on wheels.”
“EVERY ELECTION CYCLE, THE BALLOT is stuffed with propositions to take money out of taxpayer pockets for special projects like the roads, the schools, environmental cleanup, or, in this case, transit projects. Like the con men they are, government officials then use the money for whatever they want, and come back next time to ask for more. I say no more nickel and diming us to death. Let them repeal Proposition 13 and tax all the real estate millionaires at the right rate. Then, rich property owners will be carrying the burden of government, not the poor jerks who have to pay almost $1 in sales tax for every $10 they spend.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 16, 2008. Read the original PDF.