I would like to have mentioned it yesterday...

But Nathan Lott has a good link to an NPR story about Alabama's constitution and tax code mess, noting that the story "suggests that Alabama's tax structure more or less makes hypocrites of its religious citizenry."

I'm sure there are some folks out there who would like nothing better than to use the inequity of Alabama's system as a way to swat a few evangelicals. But, the current system makes every citizen of Alabama a hypocrite, regardless of their party, race, or class. Every citizen, that is, except for a precious few souls who believe that stuffing great wads of lobbyists' cash in their pockets and making sure their good buddies have a big suction hose hooked up to the Treasury is the equivalent of good government. That's why it doesn't work, and it's been that way since 1901.

Alabama deserves better, but until we decide we deserve better, it's going to be more of the same. We're like the poor sap you know who has a pretty good job, but then blows his whole paycheck on booze and dope and new wheels for his Tahoe (which he's been upside down on for three years), who then goes to his mom's house and rifles her purse to get money to buy diapers for the baby.

It didn't get this way overnight, and the folks who like it this way don't want it to change. But we'll always be poor and backward until it IS changed.
posted by Terry at 11:33:00 AM