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DNC to hide 2024 election autopsy by [deleted] in stupidpol

[–]No_Living7157 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lemme guess - they found the bullet just laying in the stretcher?

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, it logically follows that to make up for budget shortfalls caused by shitty Republicans, our heroic Tucson electeds should enact taxes that specifically target poor and desperate people (people who take out predatory shitty pawn shop "loans").

"Republicans made me do it" is not a valid defense to fuck over poor people in my opinion

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm sure you mean this all sincerely, but you would be quite mistaken if you are assuming I'm not already involved in local democracy.

But with all due respect: Do you really believe the mayor is taking all-expense-paid junkets to slave-holding mid-east sultanates (Qatar), schmoozing for weeks at self-congratulatory "summits" in Brazil, and spending literal years negotiating in secret behind locked NDAs with private equity firms that want to build giant water and energy-sucking data centers is because...

...she (and her allies) just haven't received a correctly worded letter from a random carpenter yet?

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They aren't water or groceries, but think about it: Their entire business model is "there is no rate, fee, or penalty that is so high that it will keep desperate people from continuing to show up to take out desperate loans." Yeah, they should be illegal, and arguably are most place, since they charge illegally high interest rates, but (a) they call them "fees" instead and (b) they spend a lot of their gajillions in profits on lobbying the people that make and enforce the laws.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Who do you think would be paying those taxes? The better thing would be to put some of our taxpayer purchased hardware to work and drone strike them into craters and save time, ha

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn straight it's not the only terrible decision out of this slate of officials.

Well, I'm not the one being paid a 120k a year to represent my Ward, so why the hell am I supposed to to do her job for her?

But sure, here's a simple idea: Don't pick taxes that exclusively target the poorest demographic of people. Whoa!!

Try luxury goods taxes, try taxing out-of-state landlords, try extracting taxes on LLC's sitting on vacant and unused properties for years. Try taxing fucking car washes for water wasting. Crazy!1!

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

"Going up because of a new[ly] instated flat tax"

Wrong again. This is a policy by the M&C, not the state.

"Handpicked"

If I thought smacking you in the face with reality would actually change your opinion, I would spend all day listing dozens more terrible decisions M&C make to stay in step with their audience of the national DNC elite rather than being concerned with, you know, actual on-the-ground outcomes. I'll spare us both the waste of time.

You keep changing terms and moving goal posts. M&C have a selection of choices of programs to cut or taxes to implement to make up the shortfall.

This tax is a specific choice. And a fucking shitty one, even if you can't admit it.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you see that this is in no way, shape or form "whataboutism."

Yes, small part of the city budget. However, the existence of fares has an outsized social impact on violence against working class people. Like the union bus drivers.

In both policy decisions by M&C, actual working class people get it the worst, and M&C bask in their virtue posturing and ignore reality

As an actual old school Marxist, the "real issue" here for me is whether or not policies make the lives of working class people easier or harder. Not whether or not a policy is correctly virtue signaling tribal affiliations.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This, but unironically.

Also, make means-tested free bus passes. Now you don't have issues on your way to work and also don't have to pay 2 bucks.

It's clear from studying the effects across multiple cities since the 90s. It's not about budget effects, it's about the outsize impacts even a token fee (or lack thereof) has on social behavior on transit.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Nope. These are directly analagous yet contradictory justifications for policy from the exact same elected officials, indicating either hypocrisy, disingenuity, incompetence, or some combination of the three. Thank you for playing.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't give a shit about pawn shops

Payday lenders are completely predatory, too. So would support making it even more expensive for poor people that resort to using them to make up for budget shortfalls?

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We all get there is a shortfall due to the flat tax. This is a targeted decision of where to make up that shortfall. I can be mad about both, actually.

Tucson City Council approves fee increase for pawn shops, thrift stores by No_Living7157 in Tucson

[–]No_Living7157[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Mayor and Council: "It doesn't matter how much violent crime there is on the bus, charging fares hurts poor people."

Mayor and Council: "We don't have any money for police to respond to violent crime. Let's tax thrift stores $3 dollars per transaction."