Sales taxes are always regressive which is why I am voting no. If the business community or the state think this is a good idea, let’s see them contribute something instead of yet again forcing a regressive tax on the low income and working people.
Thank you for this sobering report. Along with the regressive nature of a sales tax - something Charlotte is condemned to and so when instituted must be implemented for a good reason -the disturbing uncertainty on the availability of needed external funding, the historical record of failing to complete the full scope of projects, and the uncertainties on all the other items mentioned in this report, I am concerned by the way this proposed tax increase is being presented. It takes the same sorts of approach to me as the scams I am constantly warned against. Beware, I am counselled, of offers of "once-in-a-lifetime opportunities" which must be seized "immediately" - but for which, on examination, the details are murky or not available.
This proposal is not the last time in our lives that we will have the opportunity to do something to improve the transit systems in Charlotte. Yes there is a transit problem but this proposal is quack medicine. The light-rail portion, given previous history, is embarrassingly short of estimates on ridership and total cost; the one-fifth, one fifth, available for buses is taken as a shower of gold for all the emphasis it receives in the publicity for the proposal. This one-fifth, however many bus-shelters it will allow to be constructed, is not, I believe, sufficient to justify all five fifths of the permanent burden this tax increase would impose on the citizens of Charlotte.
Yet again no actual numbers provide by the media on current and pre COVID ridership and rider revenue (or lack thereof). If the numbers were good then of course they’d be posted everywhere. This is Charlotte’s all-time worst Boondoggle - wake up folks!
Great reporting, Steve!
Sales taxes are always regressive which is why I am voting no. If the business community or the state think this is a good idea, let’s see them contribute something instead of yet again forcing a regressive tax on the low income and working people.
Thank you for this sobering report. Along with the regressive nature of a sales tax - something Charlotte is condemned to and so when instituted must be implemented for a good reason -the disturbing uncertainty on the availability of needed external funding, the historical record of failing to complete the full scope of projects, and the uncertainties on all the other items mentioned in this report, I am concerned by the way this proposed tax increase is being presented. It takes the same sorts of approach to me as the scams I am constantly warned against. Beware, I am counselled, of offers of "once-in-a-lifetime opportunities" which must be seized "immediately" - but for which, on examination, the details are murky or not available.
This proposal is not the last time in our lives that we will have the opportunity to do something to improve the transit systems in Charlotte. Yes there is a transit problem but this proposal is quack medicine. The light-rail portion, given previous history, is embarrassingly short of estimates on ridership and total cost; the one-fifth, one fifth, available for buses is taken as a shower of gold for all the emphasis it receives in the publicity for the proposal. This one-fifth, however many bus-shelters it will allow to be constructed, is not, I believe, sufficient to justify all five fifths of the permanent burden this tax increase would impose on the citizens of Charlotte.
Yet again no actual numbers provide by the media on current and pre COVID ridership and rider revenue (or lack thereof). If the numbers were good then of course they’d be posted everywhere. This is Charlotte’s all-time worst Boondoggle - wake up folks!
Re the red line…. Any murmurs about extending up a mile to Langtree? The Pappas development there I think has space set aside just in case….