French President François Hollande hit a constitutional bump this week. The Socialist leader (who presides over a country that my students are not finding terribly oppressive) wants to raise the top tax rate to 75%. That rate would apply to about 1500 French folks for just a couple years.
But the French constitutional council said Non! this week. The new tax is unfair... not because it is high enough to make Gerard Depardieu run to Belgium, but because it is applied to individuals, while the rest of the tax system is applied to households. If one household has l'homme busting his chops to break one million euro while la femme stays home with les enfants making no money, the tax would not apply. But put two professionals each making 501K euro together in the same flat, and they pay the tax. Boo-ooo! says the constitutional council, which is all about égalité.
President Hollande will rewrite and resubmit the 75% top-tax measure so it is properly "conjugalised" (there's your bonus French word for the day—don't say it in front of the kids!)... so Flandreau! Belle Fourche! Bon Homme County! Keep working on those economic development brochures to recruit wealthy French celebrities and industrialists to build villas and factories in your fair cities!
The RV sites in South Dakota are mostly empty now but post office boxes continue to shield tax cheats like Katzy at the War Toilet. What a crock of crap.
South Dakota is a failed state:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/19/8423/grading-nation-how-accountable-your-state
Things I like about France: Besides saying "wee wee" and making jelly rolls, the French rightly sold their ownership of South Dakota to the United States.
Grudz,
... and for a pretty good price too, eh?
Seriously, I tend to look at the idea of "owning" a piece of Mother Earth as ridiculous on its face.
More approprately, I would say that Mother Earth owns us.
As for France and their 75 percent tax on the rich, that's still less than the upper tax bracket was in the USA during the Eisenhower administration. I think.
Anyhow, let Obama try to propose something like that here! Or any politician, for that matter! She or he would get laughed at all the way to Belgium.
Not that it wouldn't be a good idea ... I won't try to judge that one. We have lots of other taxes here that would complicate the formula.
A good price indeed, Mr. Gibilisco.
It seems today that most everybody believes in owning land, even parcels like Reynolds Prairie or that 40 acres up in the woods where the Pay Schlaw caretaker will live. I don't suppose you'd consider signing over your parcels in Lead to the grudznick LLP would you?
Grudz,
Only one parcel left now, and that's the one I live on.
If the price is right, I'll sell custodianship of my house to you this instant!
Then I'll use the dough to build an off-grid place in Wyoming ...
... and write a book about it, of course.
;-)
C'est un pays oppressif si on reste et vraiment habite là. Pour les touristes il est peut-etre un peu moins la cas. Quand meme, les francais ont beaucoup de raison pour demenager à Suisse ou Belgique, est c'est qu'ils font.
whoa....Miss Noem and the rest of the South Dakota contingent all voted "yes" on the fiscal cliff bill. Of course I expected Johnson would be a check mark in the "yes" column - but Thune and Noem also?? Siding with Pelosi?? Oh the horror!!!
Federal lands lead Great Plains ecotourism list again, bring billions to region:
http://newsroom.unl.edu/releases/2012/10/29/Great+Plains+Center+produces+map+of+50+top+ecotourism+sites+in+Great+Plains
Don't forget Pierre on the list of French named places, although we pronounce it incorrectly.
And Vermillion!