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Sunday, October 11, 2009

GOP shill game -- latimes.com


GOP shill game -- latimes.com:

"California's Republican state senators claim they act the way they do -- blocking budget votes, demanding health and education cuts, opening tax loopholes for downtrodden classes such as yacht owners -- because they want to protect their constituents from overbearing and ineffective government. They're becoming progressively less believable, especially after GOP senators last month held more than 20 mostly worthy bills hostage in order to try killing a program that old-school Republicans would have championed.

The senators refused to vote on Democrats' bills in an effort to eliminate ReadyReturn, a service of the Franchise Tax Board. Instead of just combing tax returns for mistakes, the board came up with the program to actually help some taxpayers, Tax officials complete returns for simple filers -- those whose income is mostly from wages -- allowing them to just sign it and send it in (with a check). Filers, if they prefer, can still figure their taxes themselves."