<font color="#ff6666">Seriously? No State income taxes in TX? Hell I may relocate. I can't move to Florida because the wages are too low, but in Texas you can earn a fair living!
Tennessee doen't have a big enough tech sector.</font>

Serious as a heart attack. You'd like our conservative principles, too. Did you know that the GOP took every single statewise office in the midterm elections? Thaat's conservatism in action. :D

In New Hampshire you can find a state with no income tax, no sales tax, and fewer conservatives to put up with. :D :D :D :D

Hmm, That’s rather intolerant and unpleasant of them,
Are they all rather unfriendly and malicious folks there then?
I mean, I know people who have opinions that I disagree with, and I wouldn’t even dream of trying to cleanse them based on their political and economic ideology choices.</font>[/QUOTE]<FONT COLOR=ORANGE>Actually, Tennesseans are usually very socialable people. They are also a rather independent lot as well and don't look kindly to the Government (either State or Federal) taking more than they deem needed. It's a fight to get the state budget passed every year, because more and more money is needed.

The last three years a state income tax has been proposed and almost passed. Last spring there was a riot outside the State House when anti-income tax people found out that the Legislature was meeting in an open, but unannounced meeting in order to pass a State Income Tax. After the fracus started, the house leaders refused to bring it to the floor for a vote , afraid that the situation might get out of hand. Many State legislatores that were for a state income tax are no longer in office (most choosing not to run again, including the ring leader). In order to pass a budget they had to up the Sales tax by 1% making us the State with the highest Sales Tax in the Union at 9.25%.

As far as, friendly goes, we had a tornado touch down about 40 or so miles from here on Sunday. Killed 7 people and hurt a bunch of others. Left many families homeless. The next day they had people from all over East and Middle Tennessee show up to volunteer to help out (over a 1,000). One man who lives alone in a three bedroom house even volunteered to give up his house and move in with his mother, if a family needed some place to stay for a while. All kinds of materials, food, clothing and furniture have been donated already for the relief. At the Civic Center in Wartburg, they set up a free shoppette of sorts, to distribute all this stuff. The tornado stuck Sunday night and all this was set up by Monday afternoon. Amazing!!! Made me proud to call myself a Tennessean!

Majik, there are plenty of Tech jobs in Tennessee. Tallohoma, Oak Ridge, Knoxville and Nashvegas come to mind as centers of Technology in this state.

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And the Middle Tennesseeans are also bright folk: smart enough to keep the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area on the Cumberland Plateau secret. ;)

Serious as a heart attack. You'd like our conservative principles, too. Did you know that the GOP took every single statewise office in the midterm elections? Thaat's conservatism in action. :D </font>[/QUOTE]<font color="#ff6666">I think the only problem with Texas would be that I HATE hot weather :( I would live in Maine if they had any jobs. </font>

<font color="#ff6666">Ah-HA! TL was right, you guys are keeping secrets down there ;) Seriously I did a recent survey of some corporate head hunters and TN wasn't even on their RADAR, as in no one was seeking workers, or at least not through the usual sources. :( </font>

<font color=orange>It's one of my favorite places to camp. The Pine Beetles have done a number on it though! I was at Bandy Creek Campground last Fall and most of the trees were dead and being cut down. They were afraid they'd fall and hurt someone. Hopefully the ine Beetles are on the decline though.</font>

[ 11-14-2002, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Sir Taliesin ]

<font color=orange>It's one of my favorite places to camp. The Pine Beetles have done a number on it though! I was at Bandy Creek Campground last Fall and most of the trees were dead and being cut down. They were afraid they'd fall and hurt someone. Hopefully the ine Beetles are on the decline though.</font></font>[/QUOTE]That's too bad. I looked into staying at Charit Creek recently, and their weekends are booked like forever. My college roommate was married on the higher arch of Twin Arches - he had worked at Charit. I was about to take a 6 mos. stint at Charit when I got my first I-can't-turn-this-down job. The Honey Creek and Angel Falls are forever favorites of mine, and places where I have had some of my most... liminal... moments. :D

<font color = lightgreen>One of the main reasons that governments have to institute a taxation scheme is because left to themselves most people would not freely give money to the government, even for the most basic social services such as water or roads.

A flat tax will hurt the lower income folks. "5% of your income" means that if you make $20,000 per year you pay $1000 in taxes, so your real income was actually only $19,000 (slightly more than $1,500 per month). If you make $200,000 per year you will pay $10,000; your real income was $190,000 (slightly more than $15,000 per month). Most people could live quite comfortably on $15,000 per month.
A national sales tax is just a flat tax with a different name.
Some years ago in my political science class, I devised a taxation scheme that was weighted--the more you make is the more you pay. That scheme was based on the thought that those who really enjoyed the fruits of capitalism paid for that privilege (according to the capitalist system--you get what you pay for).
Discussion of the tax schemes I and the other students designed led me to one conclusion: no matter what tax plan one may devise, there will be plenty of folks who will hate it or find some way to show that the scheme is "wrong".

Oh, well.</font>