Georgia Republicans are taking a serious risk, one that may threaten our national security. Considering how overextended our military is now, keeping the world safe for autocracy, we may well need to put the Girl Scouts into the battle lines. To keep their goodwill, Republicans should not be trying to tax their cookies.
Like many states, Georgia is facing a budget shortfall. To address the problem, the legislature is considering a bill that would expand the tax base by doing things like reinstating a sales tax on food and raising the tax on gasoline.
Many Georgians would be adversely affected by the tax hikes on basic commodities, including the Girl Scouts, who are worried about the “significant financial impact” the bill would have on the revenue they raise through cookie sales, which would now be subject to sales tax. Over the weekend, Marilyn Midyette, the CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, sent an email to supporters warning them that the new tax on their cookies “would take money away from Girl Scout programs“:
This significant financial impact would take money away from Girl Scout programs, camp support, financial aid and proceeds from the sale that support troop activities and community service projects.
…[P]lease contact your State House Representative and State Senator TODAY and express your concern in a courteous, Scout-like manner about our Scouts being taxed. Please reference House Bill 385. Sample letters have been provided on the left to make it easy to copy and paste into your own email. There are sample letters for girls as well as for parents and volunteers.
But while Girl Scouts and anyone who buys groceries and gasoline is forced to sacrifice, domestic and foreign corporations in Geogia are being lavished with a tax break. The same bill [PDF] that raises taxes on Girl Scouts Cookies lowers tax rates on corporate income, from 6 percent this year to just 4 percent in 2014… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Seriously, what Republicans are doing in Georgia is the same thing Republicans are doing everywhere else. They are creating deficits by giving tax cuts to the rich and criminal corporations, while taking the money to pay for the tax cuts from those who can least afford it. Ed Schultz discusses the issue with representatives of the Girl Scouts.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
You know, Republicans are just like Robin Hood, but bass-ackwards!
15 Responses to “Tax Corporations, Not Cookies!”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I sincerely but doubt that all those AstroTurf bus riding, congressmen spitting on, red voting fools are enjoying what havoc they have wreaked upon a nation already in dire straits.
Now if we coalesce around them who are standing up, such as those that are delivering over due tax bills to tellers at The Bank Of America, and them who fight on still in Wisconsin we may be able to drag some sanity back. The same damn set of bills is being tried to be pushed through in Michigan, more tax cuts for business, more people dropped from medicaid and every other safety net program to pay for it.
Now we stand and die on our feet or kneel and live in our chains…that is the choice our generation has come to.
Mark, I could not agree more.
Tax the poor and give to the rich — republican economic policy in eight words.
Reverse Robin Hood.
Got it in 3. Beatcha!! 😉
Can anyone doubt anymore that Fascism has come to America? I sure don’t.
AP, we’re too diversified for pure fascism, which is often mistaken for totalitarianism. We nor have a corporate plutocracy, moving in that direction.
And yet every Republican I ever bring up these absurdities to says “Oh, but the rich already pay so much in taxes” – of course they do, they make the MOST MONEY. But as a percent of income/wealth, it is the smallest.
It might be worth pointing out that tax rates on top-level incomes are still far below what they were under that pinko Commie socialist, Ronald “hammer-and-sickle” Reagan.
Or just ask if they’d support a return to Reagan-era tax levels for the rich, then point out that that would mean raising them, not lowering them.
Mimi, Infidel beat me to this, and I agree, except thst I would go back to Eisenhower. The rich had no trouble spending money when the top marginal rate was 92%.
Also, the super rich pay over 50% of the taxes, but they have more that 80% of the wealth.
While certainly a regressive tax on lower incomes, I wonder how much the girl scouts will actually be harmed. If you’re buying a way overpriced box of cookes already, will you not pay a few more cents to cover the tax?
The people being harmed are the lower-income, good-hearted folk who support the girl scouts (and boy scouts) by buying a box of cookies. They are good-hearted, so will continue to buy them even with the tax added.
However, this is a good way to illustrate the backwards thinking of the new breed of Republicans elected by the very people they are intent on screwing over in favor of corporations.
Marva, I agree. The image of Republicans going after the Girl Scouts is worse than the actual harm done them, But it does point out how Republicans are targeting the common people.
Each girl scout will just have to incorporate herself. That way they can probably fool the Republicans long enough to get a tax break. They might be able to get a badge for it, too.
LOL! AZ badge in corporate criminality!! 😉
This latest bunch of Rushpubliscum overreach is dangerous. They may be pulling keystones out now.
This country, with its polyglot of ethnicities, is not suitable for a Fascist state; Fascism requires a more or less homogeneous ethnic demographic. We are far more likely to dissolve as the USSR, or Yugoslavia, did.
JR, I just said almost the same thing to AP about diversity. However I see a totalitarian corporate plutocracy as the more likely end of this nation.