Boston Globe Knows About News Suppression
What else would you expect from a one-sided, pro-tax war daily?
"A bleak day for small businesses" by Jon B. Hurst | August 1, 2009
TODAY the Massachusetts sales tax goes up 25 percent to 6.25 percent. The big question on the minds of retailers is: “Are we going to survive?’’ For those who own or are employed by a retail business, today is a scary day. The sales tax increase is a significant jump at a time when the economic downturn has hit the retail industry especially hard.
Online sales nationally - most of which are untaxed - have increased by double-digit percentages for the past eight years. The effects of these purchasing shifts have impacted Massachusetts in particular where there are tech-savvy consumers. And then there is New Hampshire, the tax-free haven to the north. With both the online and north-of-the-border competitors unencumbered by sales taxes (and a wide variety of other state laws and costs too), the playing field is not the least bit level.
In spite of these challenges, retailers in Massachusetts employ 17 percent of the workforce - a half million people. Many are in small-business locations. Retail businesses are the stores and restaurants that populate Main Street in the state’s 351 cities and towns. In addition, they often sponsor town sports leagues and help underwrite numerous civic events.
To the citizens of Massachusetts that are our customers, we have a simple message for you: We need your continued patronage and loyal support....
Actually, I'm not buying and if I were, I'd be heading north.
Sorry, but they shouldn't have raised taxes.
The Massachusetts Health Care Reform law has been great for the healthcare industry and big purchasers.
Ahem: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
But it has left small businesses and their employees behind by not allowing group purchases, the very strategy that has reduced costs for the state, cities, and towns, and large businesses. The discrimination against small businesses under the law creates unfair cross subsidies from the little guy to the big guy, resulting in premium differences of thousands of dollars.
That is STATE GOVERNMENT all over because SMALL BUSINESS = CITIZENS!
As for the state:
Governor Guts State ServicesPigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
Massachusetts Residents Taken For a Ride
Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
How many times I gotta put 'em up?
Another area that needs reform is the wage laws. The retail sector is the only employment sector in the state, and one of only two in the country, that requires time-and-a-half pay for employees on Sundays in a business that has seven or more workers. That means a 14-year-old bagging groceries or stocking shelves must be paid at least $12 per hour on Sundays. In today’s marketplace, for employer and consumer alike, that just doesn’t make sense....
Yup, BANKS and WARS get TRILLIONS, but SCREW WORKERS!
I think the pimply-faced kid deserves time-and-a-half, don't you?
Consumers should stop to think about what their town center or downtown would look like without local retailers and consider giving them their business.
I already know; we have plenty of boarded-up storefronts and abandoned properties here.
And elected officials should work to lend these employers a helping hand.
Instead they are out shoveling tax loot into favored pockets!
--more--"
Taxes are ALREADY TOO HIGH -- especially when they are being LOOTED on the other side!
