Just another casualty of declining tax revenue not being able to pay for things...so the money has to be found somewhere. Sort of like a luxury tax, the state realizes that, in these economic hard times, those who can afford to go boating have discretionary income...and therefore are doing well, economically speaking. So target that segment of the population....
States, counties, municipalities, rely on tax revenue to fund necessary services to their citizens...fire, police, road maintenance, etc. A good bit of that revenue comes from the income tax collected by the IRS at the federal level, then, through budgetary allocations, is distributed to the states, which, following federal guidelines, allocate said funds to various projects.
Tax cuts initiated by un-named parties have significantly reduced that revenue stream, and continue to this day. The only people who are benefitting from said tax cuts are the wealthy, and they are certainly not putting the gain in their income back into the US, as was "hoped" for by the parties that enacted these tax cuts...
Like Maggie and I say, the first person that will be bitchin about an ambulance for their Mother being a half hour out as they are on another call, and saying why as my taxes pay for this...well, we reduced your taxes a couple years ago, don't you remember? Did you come to the town hall meeting where we said there would be a budgetary shortfall this year and services would suffer?
Damn, this gets old...
And I might add, when Maggie broke her hip (leading up to the discovery of the returned cancer), we used a private ambulance service (non-emergency), and our insurance, and we, paid for it. No tax dollars involved, and the bill has been paid...
