4 ms·

Pre-emption at work. Remind me of that time when these legislators supposedly believed in local self-government?

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Bags are pervasive. Limiting them city by city, county by county could make trouble for a lot of people. Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Bags are pervasive. So are wages, another thing state legislatures have started pre-empting local governments on. >Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order. I don't really see why "business is hard" warrants destroying local self-government, particularly in such a blatantly unprincipled way as to center power on offices held by a particular political party.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Get used to government I guess. And the harder it is, the fewer small businesses will exist. Striking down pointless restrictions is a small-business boon. Allowing endlessly complexes rules of commerce is another way of solidifying power for the oligarchy. If only Google or Amazon can sort out the rules without getting penalized to death, then goodbye entrepreneur.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      "Business is hard, let's destroy freedom and build a one-party state!"
      - linksnapzz 10y ago
        It's entirely legitimate that the division of authority between a state gov't and smaller entities be different from that between states and the Federal gov't. These are not the same thing. For instance, I think that municipal broadband is a great idea, but I also respect that states have the authority to stop cities and towns from doing it, so long as that is allowed by the state and federal constitution. It's possible to not want the same policy when it would be executed in a vastly (intrastate/interstate) different context. Also, "Business is hard, let's destroy freedom and build a one-party state!" is an obnoxiously reductive non-sequitur, disrespectful of arguments made upthread, and not really deserving of a civilized response. HN rhetoric at its finest.
        eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        >It's entirely legitimate that the division of authority between a state gov't and smaller entities be different from that between states and the Federal gov't. It's plausibly legitimate: I can imagine possible worlds where it works that way for a good reason. I just find it hard to imagine I live in such a world, and it's vastly more plausible that here in real life it's a class-based partisan power grab. Many of the bag fees and minimum-wage rises haven't even been passed by Party X: they've actually been ballot initiatives. So "partisanship" isn't even an adequate excuse. We really are looking at state legislators directly overriding the will of the voters because they don't like the outcomes.
- gumby 10y ago
  > Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order. Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business. Second of all, that "enormous pain" can be outsourced to a service that knows the various tax regimes. You have to get it right, but you don't need to know the details any more than you need to know how to design the computer your e-commerce platform is running on.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Small business can't always just write a check to solve their problems. My buddy just charged the standard state tax for instance, when selling books online, then at tax time he figured out how much he'd undercharged in taxes and paid it himself. Done that way its definitely a 'small business tax'.
    - gumby 10y ago
      > Small business can't always just write a check to solve their problems. My buddy just charged the standard state tax for instance, when selling books online, then at tax time he figured out how much he'd undercharged in taxes and paid it himself. Done that way its definitely a 'small business tax'. Well if your buddy doesn't understand how to manage his bandwidth or AWS costs, or doesn't know to switch off the heater when leaving for home and runs up a huge bill, you don't call it a 'small business tax'. I get it: there are a lot of things to keep track of running a business, and the fewer you have to deal with the better. I just don't understand why taxes are somehow magically terrible while setting up your web site or payment processing is somehow legit.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    >Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business. It's their business how they tax entities that are actually located within their borders. It's not their business to tax entities that are located outside those borders, even in other states, and merely ship into the locality. If the locality doesn't like that, they're free to ban shipping and the USPS, but I don't think the Federal government will take too kindly to that.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > Limiting them city by city, county by county could make trouble for a lot of people No it fucking won't.
symbolicvictory 10y ago
If there ever was an era of enlightened politics where principles mattered - I'm doubtful - it's well past. This is just symbolic red meat for the exurban base and a deliberate poke in the eye to urban liberals (in the American sense of the term.) If there's upside to this sort of nonsense, it is that the congenital inability of the cussed-mean segment of the American body politic to restrain itself from repeatedly delivering insults of this kind tends to be a major factor limiting its reach. See Pat McCrory.

Bags are pervasive. Limiting them city by city, county by county could make trouble for a lot of people. Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Bags are pervasive. So are wages, another thing state legislatures have started pre-empting local governments on. >Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order. I don't really see why "business is hard" warrants destroying local self-government, particularly in such a blatantly unprincipled way as to center power on offices held by a particular political party.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Get used to government I guess. And the harder it is, the fewer small businesses will exist. Striking down pointless restrictions is a small-business boon. Allowing endlessly complexes rules of commerce is another way of solidifying power for the oligarchy. If only Google or Amazon can sort out the rules without getting penalized to death, then goodbye entrepreneur.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    "Business is hard, let's destroy freedom and build a one-party state!"
    - linksnapzz 10y ago
      It's entirely legitimate that the division of authority between a state gov't and smaller entities be different from that between states and the Federal gov't. These are not the same thing. For instance, I think that municipal broadband is a great idea, but I also respect that states have the authority to stop cities and towns from doing it, so long as that is allowed by the state and federal constitution. It's possible to not want the same policy when it would be executed in a vastly (intrastate/interstate) different context. Also, "Business is hard, let's destroy freedom and build a one-party state!" is an obnoxiously reductive non-sequitur, disrespectful of arguments made upthread, and not really deserving of a civilized response. HN rhetoric at its finest.
      - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        >It's entirely legitimate that the division of authority between a state gov't and smaller entities be different from that between states and the Federal gov't. It's plausibly legitimate: I can imagine possible worlds where it works that way for a good reason. I just find it hard to imagine I live in such a world, and it's vastly more plausible that here in real life it's a class-based partisan power grab. Many of the bag fees and minimum-wage rises haven't even been passed by Party X: they've actually been ballot initiatives. So "partisanship" isn't even an adequate excuse. We really are looking at state legislators directly overriding the will of the voters because they don't like the outcomes.
gumby 10y ago
> Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order. Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business. Second of all, that "enormous pain" can be outsourced to a service that knows the various tax regimes. You have to get it right, but you don't need to know the details any more than you need to know how to design the computer your e-commerce platform is running on.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Small business can't always just write a check to solve their problems. My buddy just charged the standard state tax for instance, when selling books online, then at tax time he figured out how much he'd undercharged in taxes and paid it himself. Done that way its definitely a 'small business tax'.
  - gumby 10y ago
    > Small business can't always just write a check to solve their problems. My buddy just charged the standard state tax for instance, when selling books online, then at tax time he figured out how much he'd undercharged in taxes and paid it himself. Done that way its definitely a 'small business tax'. Well if your buddy doesn't understand how to manage his bandwidth or AWS costs, or doesn't know to switch off the heater when leaving for home and runs up a huge bill, you don't call it a 'small business tax'. I get it: there are a lot of things to keep track of running a business, and the fewer you have to deal with the better. I just don't understand why taxes are somehow magically terrible while setting up your web site or payment processing is somehow legit.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business. It's their business how they tax entities that are actually located within their borders. It's not their business to tax entities that are located outside those borders, even in other states, and merely ship into the locality. If the locality doesn't like that, they're free to ban shipping and the USPS, but I don't think the Federal government will take too kindly to that.
serge2k 10y ago
> Limiting them city by city, county by county could make trouble for a lot of people No it fucking won't.

symbolicvictory 10y ago

If there ever was an era of enlightened politics where principles mattered - I'm doubtful - it's well past. This is just symbolic red meat for the exurban base and a deliberate poke in the eye to urban liberals (in the American sense of the term.) If there's upside to this sort of nonsense, it is that the congenital inability of the cussed-mean segment of the American body politic to restrain itself from repeatedly delivering insults of this kind tends to be a major factor limiting its reach. See Pat McCrory.