Goodness! I didn't realize that I had been silent for almost a month...Silent, but not without opinions, and there have been a few things that have been percolating in my mind...
First, let me say that I stand with you, Spirit Airlilnes, on your unpopular implementation of a fee for carry on bags. Personally, I have an affinity for this because I find it extremely annoying to stand in the aisle of a plane behind someone who is "encouraging" their too large bag to fit inside an overhead compartment. Sometimes, I have all I can do to keep from saying, "It might be easier for you to ride in the overhead compartment and put your mondo-bag on the seat!" or "Please tell me that during turbulence, when your mondo-bag bursts out of the compartment it will hit YOU and not ME on the head." Anyway, that's my personal reasoning. If it costs more than checking your bag, fewer people will do it, and we will be able to board the plane in less time...and de-board in less time too! And have less risk of injury and aggravation...
But there is a better reason why I want Chuck Schumer and the government to stay out of Spirit Airline's business. We don't need government to come in and start making a bunch of new rules that will be stupid in half the circumstances they regulate, when the marketplace will take care of any problems on its own. I've noticed that Spirit Airlines is not the only airline in the country...hmmmm -- and if people think their new policy is unfair, they will probably find another airline to fly with...hmmm...And if enough people do that, Spirit Airlines will start to lose money, and they will decide that perhaps charging for carry-ons isn't working out so well...and then they will stop doing that...
That is called the "free market" and isn't it amazing how it just takes care of the perceived problem without leaving behind a pile of paperwork, documentation and irrelevant regulation. It's AMAZING!! Chuck, you should try it some time...soon.
My second issue is a potential biggie: the proposal for a Washington State income tax "on the wealthy". First question: Who gets to decide who is wealthy? I think that there may be as many definitions of wealthy as there are people in the state. If one of the premises of this proposal is to make things "fair", how do you define what is "fair"?
Frankly, I feel sorry for the wealthy. They just don't get credit for one of their major contributions to society. Everyone thinks that the best they can do is give more money to be shared with those who have not...I think their major contribution is that their success creates more jobs. "Ever seen a poor man give another man a job?" I quote a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show. It's a lot like the old adage, "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."
The tax dollars taken from the rich are finite. The opportunities that a job gives an individual are not. So I see the proposed income tax as limiting opportunities. And of course, it is another case of punishing the productive to reward the unproductive -- and I'm not just talking about welfare recipients -- unless you consider our state government a welfare recipient, which it very nearly is, come to think of it. If it's going to keep going, we are going to have to give more to help it get back on it's feet...Which seem to be standing on our feet...all the time lately.
Overall, it just isn't a solution to take more money from our successful entrepeneurs and businesses to grow a state government that can't get its own budget balanced -- or even understood. It seems to me that a little tough love, a little free market thinking might be in order here.
