On PBS' Horizon, Host Ted Simons interviewed Goldwater Institute's Byron Schlomach along with an ASU economist discussing the sales tax hike.
Simons asked Schlomach exactly the right question about G.I.'s ridiculous claim that a 1 cent sales tax hike will cost the average family $400.
Where are you getting those numbers, because that suggests an average family is spending a lot of money, 40, 50, $60,000 a year on things that can be taxed. Where is that coming from?
Good question. Here is Schlomach's typically deceptive answer.
Well, first of all, what you do is you take the tax, the $918 million, divide by the population, you get a number per person. The average household is 2.64 people. You do the multiplication you get $373 to $400 [$400 if you use $1 billion as the total from the tax hike].
Unfortunately, neither Simons nor ASU economist Dennis Hoffman has read my frequent take down of this ploy, and they haven't talked to an economist at the Eller Business College at UA who explained to me how much sales tax is paid by tourists and by businesses, not by Arizona families. So Schlomach pretty much got away with his idiocy, as well as this snark:
Now, it's an average. I'm using an average. If you can't do average math, that's not my problem.
Jerk! First he creates a simplified equation that doesn't make any real economic sense, then, when he sees his opponents aren't prepared to rebut him, he belittles them. G.I. is populated with little, little people.
Here's another figure Schlomach pulled out, one that I've never heard. He said the average Arizona family of 2.64 makes $86,000 a year. $86,000? Are you serious? If that's true, the rich in this state are very rich, because the median is more like $65,000.
Schlomach said the average income per person, and that includes children, is $30,000.
Anybody out there know where Schlomach got his figures?
(h/t to Todd for letting me know about the video.)
Recent Comments