"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Monday, June 1, 2009

It Is Not A Game

Addie Jenne Russell has been relatively low key in her performance as Assemblywoman from the 118th district, going along doing her job and nothing flashy, just getting the job done - until recently.

She has come up on the radar quickly and mainly because she is treating legislating like a game of gimmicks and underestimating her constituent's intelligence.

She voted to pass a floor tax as part of legislation included in part of several budget bills, any one of which she could have easily voted NO on much like many of her Democratic colleagues. But, she voted yes and now she deploys gimmicks like a press conference taped for YouTube and states the floor tax mysteriously appeared in the bill.

When asked by a reporter how she proposes to make up the lost revenue of  $1 million revenue or whatever amount she said the tax represents, she callously states the amount is a minor part of a $131 billion dollar budget that will need fixing later this year anyway.

Here is the text of the bill including the floor tax, looks pretty clear to me, if she in fact even read the bill.

In order to subject beer and wines in this state on May 1, 2009 to the increased taxes imposed by section one of this act, a special floor tax is imposed on each wholesaler or retailer (as defined in the alcoholic beverage control law) or other sellers of beer and wine, other than those registered as distributors under article 18 of the tax law, 35 at the rates shown below with respect to all beer and wines in the possession or under the control on May 1, 2009 of those wholesalers, retailers and other sellers of beer and wines for purposes of sale in the state.

Additionally, any person who is a distributor or manufacturer under article 18 of the tax law is subject to this special floor tax on any beer and wines in his or her possession or under his or her control on which the tax under article 18 of the tax law was already imposed.
This is not a reality show, she needs to read and understand legislation before she votes on it and quit playing games, the consquences effect people's lives.  

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

She's in over her head.

Anonymous said...

Hope her pride shows when she defends her vote for a 9% budget increase when taxpayers are starving.

Anonymous said...

Wow! After reading your post -- and the bill (something our elected reps clearly didn't bother to do)-- it's pretty tough to swallow Darrel's excuse that the florr tax was an "unintended consequence" of the budget.

Wonder how much more Albany "unintends" to do to our local economy and prospects for jobs.

Anonymous said...

Okay, so it only took you 3 days to find it when you were specifically looking for it? C'mon IV, these people are not super hero's. If you cannot admit that if you were in the same position you would not have missed one tiny line in thousands of pages of legal writing then you are a complete liar. She made a mistake and she is trying to do the right thing. Isn't your motto "People before politics?" Why don't you practice what you preach you partisan hack.

Anonymous said...

I cannot wait till the Jefferson County budget passes. I am going to comb it so closely to find every single little line that you missed and attack you for it. I bet you wont even try to do the right thing and pass a repeal either.

Anonymous said...

You're right about the Jeff. Co. Budget, and when Addie was there she didn't look to close either, Bare bones budget???????

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