RESPONSE - Shetterly

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#2.  In three parts, outline your vision for the best system of taxation
for the state of Minnesota.

        1.  What is the tax mix today (income, sales, property, etc.)?
        2.  Where would you like to see the mix in the year 2000?  Why?
        3.  What steps or program do you propose to get from here to there?

1. A shaft, if you're poor or middle-class. If you're rich, the Minnesota
tax distribution isn't bad and is getting better as Governor Carlson
continues to reduce income tax for the wealthy while shifting the burden to
property tax and sales tax, which hit the poor and the middle-class
hardest.
        Some people invariably respond to this argument by saying people
like me are advocating class warfare. When the gap between rich and poor is
growing as quickly as it is today, the war has already begun and the rich
are winning.

2. Though I am not committed to any specific tax plan, I would like our tax
burden to come entirely from a simplified progressive income tax. This tax
would have only two exceptions, exemptions, deductions, or modifications:
(1) It would have a personal exemption high enough to make sure that people
below the poverty limit did not have to pay any taxes. (2) It would allow
income-averaging for people whose incomes fluctuate wildly from one year to
the next.

3. I would immediately call for phasing out our sales tax. The state's
profits from legalizing and taxing drugs, prostitution, gambling, and other
consensual trade should be applied to the cost of public education and
health care so communities could begin eliminating their property taxes.

Will Shetterly
Grassroots Party candidate for Governor
POBox 7253, Minneapolis, MN 55407

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