I purchased $160.75 of alcohol today. I buy the best value rather than the best product, which today meant purchases of a Busch 20-pack, a 12-pack of Sierra Nevada, nine bottles of Freixenet champagne, 3 bottles of Cristalino champagne, and a handle of Sobieski vodka. I got a 20 percent volume discount on the case of champagne, so my total actually cashed out at $137.38. I don't plan on drinking it all in one sitting. The purpose of my stockpile is tomorrow's tax increase in Massachusetts. The sales tax increases from 5 to 6.25 percent, with an additional change to the law making that tax applicable to alcohol sales. I am not a tax cheat for avoiding the new levy; the governor and legislature are tax cheats for devising it. There are already state taxes built into the price of alcohol. So, the new law applying the sales tax on alcohol is a tax upon a tax. I wish I could say Massachusetts stands alone in such inventive revenue schemes. Proposed cash grabs include Washington, DC's $51-a-year charge for street lights, Oregon's $50 per beer keg production tax, and New York's $10 cover charge to the strip club's doorman/taxman. Such greed for my money fuels my cheerful contempt for the state, which, I can assure you--far more than any stinginess on my part--served as the impetus for my liquor-store splurge. It's not so much that I want to save money as it is that I don't want to give any more money to the tax cheats on Beacon Hill.
To live in Mass as Johnny in slapshot said "Its F%^&*ing embarrassing"/
I wrote my local rep in Belmont MA about the proposed gas tax hike back in March and told him i needed to see fiscal discipline before we increase taxes. He wrote back he is for a 50 cent a gallon tax increase. These are the people we have elected, get them the hell out of there.state, there's this attitude of well I deserve $150,000 dollars a year. Whether your cleaning pools, or digging ditches. Wake up union people, the honeymoons over.
I thought that I was the only person that knew the value of Cristalino... Can we keep this a secret and not drive up the price.... Please.
Agreed. A Dan rule: the value of Cristalino shall not be spoken of--lest the infidels discover the truth and drive its price above Cristal (a relative of Cristalino, no?). Alas, I am drinking Freixenet as I write, which is better than Cristalino, though $1 more in price. Is its value better? I leave that to those, like Brian, who celebrate with champagne, to decide.
Massachusetts? Love it or leave it. The lemmings vote in the same Democrats time after time and, as with the definition of insanity, expect different results.
Goody, fiscal responsibility is the problem. They ain't got none and they think the money pool is ever deep when the reality is that the folks supporting their public largesse are tapped out. My choice is to leave it.
What more can you say when the people back in November had a chance to vote down the state income tax and 70% of the public school educated, dumbed down, Massachusetts electorate voted to keep it.
Oy vay.
ASDF..You are spot on Brother!! Mass is a strange place politically.
