How do you turn leftist students into anti-tax activists?
Put a sales tax on their tuition.
Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, just seven years out of college, is igniting ire with his plan to levy a 1 percent tax on tuition collected by the city’s 10 nonprofit colleges and universities.
Introduced as part of Ravenstahl’s 2010 budget less than a week after he won reelection on Nov. 3, the so-called “Fair Share Tax†would raise $16.2 million in annual revenue for the city, his estimates claim. “We value Pittsburgh’s nonprofit community,†he said as he announced the tax. “They are our major employers, and a big part of why our economy continues to be strong. However, we can no longer afford to provide city services to those who are not paying their fair share.â€
Students would have to pay between $27 and $409 annually, depending on tuition, to their colleges and universities, which would then remit the money to the city. Students at the Community College of Allegheny County would pay the least and students at Carnegie Mellon University would pay the most.
The irony is so solid you could set a cup of coffee on it.
If it DOES turn lefties into anti-tax activists, maybe it’s not all bad. The sooner in life people realize what government can and will do TO them, the better for the Republic.
I wholeheartedly agree, Kevin.
But if I can slice the schadenfreude with a knife, all the better.
I have found that the average “young person”, when forcibly confronted with reality in a way that they can’t escape, generally begins to turn toward a more conservative outlook.
Wasn’t it Winston Churchill who said:
“Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.”