The New York Times cityroom blog is reporting this from Staten Island, New York's most backward borough:
Staten Island Republican Borough President James P. Molinaro (the jerk above, right) wants to sell the naming rights to a public bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey. The bridge will undergo some rebuilding soon.
Anything to avoid taxing the rich contributors to Molinaro's campaign and the incomes of their fellow rich Republicans.
But I have a solution:
What we need is some public-spirited person with a lot of bucks to bid the top dollar to name the bridge, "The Borough President James P. Molinaro Is An Asshole" Bridge.
Whaddya wanna bet, if that happens, that Molinaro starts walking his idea backwards?
2 comments:
Two thoughts: one, I should think you might want to regard the sale of naming rights as precisely a tax an the rich. The rich really have no natural predator except their own idle vanity, and the extraction of wealth from their pockets such a foolish conceit might be regarded as an equilibrating endeavor.
Two, the Ancient Greeks made it policy: taxation through shame. If you were accorded the honor of being asked to lay on a liturgy or fit out a trireme, you knew you had to shovel out the drachmas or lose face with the boys down at the country club. Cheaper than sending out Tony Soprano to break your kneecaps.
I'm in for $1,000.
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