Commuter tax
 

Who the hell lives in WVA????

Commuter tax
 

Right, which was part of my point. If VA enacted a "back at ya" tax on DC commuters, they would piss off people communiting into VA from other states as well. Sure, they don't vote, but the companies who hire workers from NC, WVa, etc., might not be pleased.

Anyway, it's all pretty irrelevant, because Congress will never let it happen.

As for folks from WVa, I worked with someone who lived in that litte tip of WVa near Harper's Ferry. Took MARC in -- about an hour commute each way. Did a decent amount of telecommuting,though.

Job Openings
 

I have been asked to post the following job announcement:

Local DC firm has immediate need for one or two junior associates to do a major document review. If you know of any [or are] good un- or under-employed law grads, please email sail20052003@yahoo.com. Background in Government Contracts is helpful but not required. Solid references required.

(bracketed addition mine)

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Excerpts:

"D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) fired back, saying the suburbs are against a commuter tax because they unfairly benefit from the current arrangement. "The only argument [the suburbs] have is: 'We're greedy. We do not want to pay our fair share,' " Evans said. "I'm appalled at the people in Virginia. They're living up to their reputation of being narrow-minded. When you think of people in Virginia, you think of them as backward, and they confirm it on something like this.""

Nice. Of course, we'll ignore all that money I pay in Metro fees to get in and out of this city. We'll also ignore all the staff jobs that our firm creates for D.C. residents.

""D.C. is admittedly unique because the federal government is not going to pick up and leave," Gessing said. "To be honest, it would not be, if it somehow got through the courts, as big an issue here.""

Yeah, except for everyone else (like the lawyers) who will start working in Virginia or Maryland. I know I would.

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Something tells me that you might get an answer from the governor on this one.

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of course, Metro fares go to Metro, not the DC gov't. And metro isn't exactly spinning off profits to the DC gov't

Why? It wouldn't change your tax liability. You'd get a credit against your Va. taxes. It's a pure transfer from VA/MD tax revenue to DC tax revenue (assuming no tit-for-tat measure by VA/MD)

I think the lawsuit is completely stupid, since it strikes me as a dead-bang loser. Also, I'm not quite sure what city resources VA and MD commuters use, other than roads. If that's the case, enact an entry toll, a la London, with DC residents being exempt.

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The assumption is made that VA and MDers benefit from fire, police, and medical protection as well.

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I live in the district and get shit for benefits from any of those three. I can't imagine VA and MDers get it better from them than I.

Besides, usually property taxes are what are paid to go towards such services. Don't law firms pay taxes on the real estate (either directly or through higher lease payments reflecting the landlords' taxes)?

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I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm repeating what has been used as the justification by members of the D.C. board.

Property taxes are paid for such services, but one could argue that once you're outside the office, store, etc., that you are directly benefitting from the -availability- of city services. You don't have to tangibly use them to enjoy the benefit of them. Or so they say.

The new Thottam
 

We're discussing commuter taxes when we could be discussing this:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Jul15.html

:shock:

(Sent by a now-dismissed hill intern to his co-worker)

"Subject: you suck

"Well, as of this afternoon, I was planning on ruining your career
by making phone calls to all of my parents friends and have you blackballed from the workplace as well as every prestigous law school in the country, but then (lucky for you) I decided not to do that because you are a sad sad person and I will just let your life self destruct right before my eyes....

"M______ I am sorry, I don't care how big of sadistic f*cked up
crush you have on me but people like me simple don't date people like you. You are too competitive with me and you just simply will never be better than me. I will always have more friends than you just because I don't care about beating people and lying to get to the top. (You are an absolute hipocrit in everything that you do, I am not going to go into details why you are because that would be a waste of my time and yours but I can assure you if you were to ever meet yourself you would hate your twin).

"I have told most all of the staff about our situation now and they already knew you were really messed you. They said when you were talking to them about me, they all told me you had 'serious issues' and that every word you said sounded scripted and they knew without a doubt that you were lying. I have noticed that people who you think are your good friends actually really dislike you but unlike me, they will not tell you to your face because they would rather be fake nice to you than be your enemy. ....

"Now talking about how I am obsessed with money, I simply am not. You are. You always are trying to impress me by how much money you have and I don't care. The difference is though I talk about it but it is never about bragging and it is never directly about money, it is always directly about the conversation.

"For instance, someone will ask, what are you doing for july 4rth.
And then I will say I am going to aspen. It is a simple fact that I am but since you don't have a house in aspen, you get offended because of your competitive nature. When you talk about money you will say something like UT's tuition is 5% of your family's income, thus my tuition would be 125,000. Yea, M________ you are right, I brag too much about what I have....

"Well I am just going to stop writing because you are just absolutely
beneath me. I have heard that you try to undermine people all the time that are better than you and every single time it does not work because people can see through such shallowness and that is why as I have heard so many times, Most 'everyone at UT absolutely hates you.'

"For instance even the people that you thought were your friends M______ M_________ or that girl you met at espn, they hate you, they just never say anything. Everyone knows you are a pathetic social climber who will go to any discusting means to move up the ladder.

"But guess what M_____, you will never move up the ladder because I
am at the top and people like me hate people like you. You might be
able to trick people like me for maybe a month or so but your true personality comes through after a while and it is vile, if that. You have sooooo many people that absolutely hate you and you will never know it because they will never say anything to your face. You will not succeed in life and even the staff thinks that also, after I told them about the things that you do.

"You suck! and good luck being miserable for the rest of your life. I do not even know why I wasted my time typing this for suck slime. Everyone tells me that you are so beneath me (which you are) and I should not get worked up over suck trifles.

"By the end of the day if I wanted to, I could make a phone call and
have your life absolutely ruined but there is no need because you are
falling fast enough towards failure without me. In the end, all I can say is that people love me and people hate you. You should observe me and take a few notes on how to make real friends. Other than you tieing this one other person, I have never had such little respect for a human being in my life. I don't even have to tell you why because in my very accurate analysis that most everyone else agrees with, if you were to agree with my analyis about your character than my whole entire analysis would be wrong.

"Your inflamed ego has left you so blind and so impotent that you can nto even recognize the most obvious flaws in yourself. All your old roommates absolutely hated you and you still think the problem is with them, not you. Well I talked to your roommates and I thought they nice normal girls. So naturally, you would not fit in with them because you are so intellectually above them all.

"Right? You suck at life and you need to figure out why or you will be
miserable for the rest of your life.

"Once again from your intellectual, moral, social, and emotional
superior,
>Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr."

A future Summer Associate?
 

The problem is, it's just not as good as the skadden email. It's just a poor hate letter, that happened to go to a co-worker, so: busted. It doesn't contain all the wonderful digs on Skadden and its summer program that made the email so wonderful to read.

And he doesn't even accuse her of being bad in bed, or something juicy.

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FUck this thread is boring. Can we go back to the scinitillating convo about how the metro planners fucked up? Jesus. I would rather bill.

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[Deleted for anon abuse. Come on--even the from line says "not to be used for flames".]

A future Summer Associate?
 

And not even a very good one at that. For such an elitist, you'd think he'd proof it once...