Monday, September 6, 2010

Taxing Your Corndogs (Posted by Request)

Recently someone requested that I write a post to  address the latest claims by Michele Bachmann (via "Jim the Election Guy") that Tarryl Clark voted to "tax your corndog." This has already been addressed by a number of sources, but I'll give a quick run down here.

If you haven't seen the ad in question, this is it:



Lucky for us, we don't even need to speculate exactly what tax vote the Bachmann campaign is referring to when they mention bacon and corndogs. They provide us the source on their website. The main source listed says that Tarryl "Voted FOR a constitutional amendment which raised the state sales tax by 3/8 of one percent. (Minnesota Senate, S.F. 2734, SJ4525, April 3, 2006)" I know what you must be thinking..."Huh, I don't remember a constitutional amendment about corndogs ever being on my ballot." The constitutional amendment cited here is actually the legacy amendment. It was a constitutional amendment that was on the ballot to let Minnesotans vote to decide whether or not to approve a 3/8 of one percent tax increase to go towards dedicated funding for the Minnesota environment, arts, and culture. Tarryl Clark did not vote implement this tax. She voted to allow Minnesotans to decide whether or not they wanted to approve such an amendment. They did. The amendment passed and taxes went up because the majority of Minnesotans decided to raise them. It was the voters' final decision and not a decision of congress.

The bottom line is that Bachmann's ad could have just as well said "While you're the fair, ask yourself: 'What's up with taxing my own corndog?'"

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