A REMINDER: If you pay to see a movie, you are supporting Hollywood. If you rent DVDs, pay for HBO or any other premium movie channel, subscribe to a movie service, or go to a movie theater, you are supporting the very people some of you claim to oppose. You either pay to see movies and support Hollywood, or you don't, but don't rationalize and convince yourself that the pay-channel to which you subscribe or the DVD you rented doesn't count -- it does.

A REMINDER: If you pay to see a movie, you are supporting Hollywood and other leftists. If you rent DVDs, pay for HBO or any other premium movie channel, subscribe to a movie service, or go to a movie theater, you are supporting the very people some of you claim to oppose. You either pay to see movies and support Hollywood, or you don't, but don't rationalize and convince yourself that the pay-channel to which you subscribe or the DVD you rented doesn't count -- it does.

"... fixed variable" ?

Not a novel idea. This idea has been around for over a hundred years. As a child in LA in the nineteen fifties, I remember efforts to divide the state into two states. Other names for the two states were proposed, but I don't remember them. There were also proposals to divide California into three states, N. CA, Central CA, and S. CA.

As tax rates increase, the underground economy will pick up -- cash for services, cash for merchandise. The US has primarily a service economy, so cash for services will have the greatest impact. Also, cash for services is the hardest to track. The underground economy is always with us, but it will accelerate with the increase in taxes.