| redeye |
October 27, 2006
It's not every American politician who can go to Europe and have a tax named after him.
Earlier this month, Al Gore spent a day in Brussels to promote his eco-mentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," and give a talk. "Our planet has a fever, and the fever has been getting steadily higher," he said. "It is in fact a full-scale planetary emergency." Within days, apparently so taken with the former U.S. Vice President's message, this low country's politicians were rewriting its tax laws.
Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt invoked his American visitor in proposing a new "environmentally friendly" tax on packages that would penalize users of aluminum or plastic and give them incentives to switch to paper or cardboard, whose production releases less CO2 into the atmosphere. The details have yet to be worked out, but the idea is for milk sold in, say, a plastic bottle, to cost more than milk sold in a cardboard container.
"We must take Al Gore's message seriously," Mr. Verhofstadt told parliament last week. The measure, introduced into the draft 2007 budget, was fast dubbed "the Gore tax." Also in the works are tax breaks for car pollution filters and deductions for energy-efficient investors.
Look closer, though, and this grand Belgian scheme to save our planet also happens to raise a bundle for the Kingdom's coffers, to the tune of roughly €600 million a year. A government spokesman says that the revenue will make up for what it expects to lose from planned reductions in social taxes, some of the highest in Europe. Evidently the government figures that dressing the new tax package up in Al Gore green will make it go down easier.
The opposition in parliament and business groups, which oppose the "Gore tax," must rue the day that this American lost Florida and came peddling his ideas in their little country. |
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| Billyfromsphily |
Quote: Originally posted by redeye
October 27, 200 The opposition in parliament and business groups, which oppose the "Gore tax," must rue the day that this American lost Florida and came peddling his ideas in their little country. |
The Europeans aren't as blind to the fact that you have to pay for what you spend........UNLIKE the Republican party.
IF the Republicans Win in NOVEMBER and again in 2008, what will be their plan to pay for all the spending they have done????? |
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