The Chicago Sun-Times really pulled a whopper in their March 26th piece about a tax on bottled water that the Chicago City Council passed earlier this year. Chicago levied a 5 cent a bottle tax on each unit of bottled water sold in the city expecting to raise $875,000 a month on the tax. But somehow this windfall to the city has yet to be realized with the tax booty so far only amounting to $554,000. Because of this "below expected" revenue the Sun-Times claimed that this shortfall is "exacerbating a budget crunch" for the city.I'm sorry Sun-Times but a tax shortfall isn't "exacerbating a budget crunch." The city itself is doing the "exacerbating" not the taxpayers. The City Council created a never before heard of tax and then spent the money it assumed it'd get. But then it didn't get it. How can we blame the taxpayers who avoided the tax -- legally avoided it, I might add -- for any "budget crunch"? The budget crunch is the fault of wild spending by the Chicago City Council, not by the taxpayers not being bled enough.
Click through and read the rest; it's enough to make you wonder (unless of course you believe in the power of the almighty government, then you'll simply wonder at the evil!! of the tax-payers that didn't buy the water).
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