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« on: January 13, 2020, 11:45:55 pm »
Arthur shakes his head as he rises.
“No sales tax. Senator Zhuo suggests people won’t notice the cost of goods going up by almost one-third in the days following us passing the budget. I think rather more highly of our constituents, and I don’t think this Senate would long survive such foolishness. To be fair, a lot of what he said seems to be designed to end this body before we can even begin!
He suggests that in order to make life better on Concordia, we should tax Concordians into oblivion: Real estate taxes to encourage good Concordians to leave; electricity and fuel taxes so good Concordians can’t afford to power their homes and vehicles; sales taxes so the price of everything increases far in excess of what even the hardest working Concordians can afford.
He doesn’t even stop there! Oh no, the common Concordian won’t even be able to find solace at the bottom of a bottle after they’ve lost everything at the hands of Zhuo’s tax schemes!
No, in order to achieve what he thinks we need, people to go out and explore among the stars, find new homes for our ever-growing population, we appeal to the frontier spirit that brought our ancestors here,”
Arthur brings the palm of his real hand down to slap the dais in front of him.
“Right here, all those years ago. Landing Spot. They faced great trials and tribulations, both lesser and greater than the ones we face today. They overcame failed harvests, great natural disasters, even, yes, losing communications with our ancestral home like we have today. And they triumphed! Everything we hold dear today we can thank our lucky stars that our forebears where hardy enough, clever enough, sheer-bloody-minded enough to blaze the trail. And for what? To see the first inklings of a planetary government squeeze the life out of the common man at the behest of that,”
He points at Zhuo with his prosthetic.
“Corporate beast who - credit where it’s due, at least he’s honest about it - wants us to crush the competition so he doesn’t have to dip into his own pockets to do it himself? And we all just nod along and “yes sir, excellent point, sir” our way into it?
We’re better than that. The Concordian people deserve better than that. We are here to represent and support the great people that make us who we are, not tell them what to do and not complain about it. We’re definitely not here to imply they’re too stupid to notice their paycheck only buys them 2/3 of their usual shopping every week.
We allow the people choice in what they need. We tax them 20% to give them a safe society to live and work in, and they decide what to spend the rest on. Actually force people like Zhuo to entice people to spend their money on what they sell, instead of forcing them by increasing the price of everything so rapidly it makes their head spin. We’d lose our best and brightest in the immediate aftermath, those quick enough, rich enough, or just plain lucky enough to get out before the floor falls out from under them.
No, if Zhuo’s product is good enough, and sold at a fair price, he has nothing to worry about. People will buy it. We could even offer a subsidy or a grant to a bold new generation of Concordians, ready to seek out their own Landing Spot somewhere in the vastness of the universe.
Perhaps he has deep enough pockets to offer such grants to those that wish to find their fortune among the stars, so we don’t have to? He doesn’t seem to think they’re clever enough, though. He said explorers won’t have to pay fuel taxes out there in the endless space between planets. I wonder how they’ll get off Concordia without paying those fuel taxes? Perhaps one of them will get out and push?”
