Well, I don’t know of any big homeless problem in Colorado. If you go to the Department of Revenue’s website. you can see in the second quarter of Fiscal year of 2012-2013 alone, the state got over $6 million just in sales taxes
That looks like a decent chunk of change to ME.
Frankly a good high would make you want some food, but probably shun anything like a subway sandwich. Maybe that’s the basis of his objection. In point of fact: stoners do NOT go grab a bag of cheetos
Having visited dispensaries in two different Colorado towns in the last week, my casual observation was that the customers were upper-middle class baby boomers, almost all of them from out of state. Of course this probably was affected being in resort towns that draw this type of ilk.
I can only believe that legal pot is going to be very good for the economy of Colorado. If I have a choice between skiing in uptight Utah or laid back Colorado I know where I want my plane to land.
After a year it will be interesting to read a truly academic study of the economic ramifications of legal weed, not just of the pot trade, but of ripple effect of increased tourism on hotels, restaurants, etc. and savings to government in reduced law enforcement costs.
This is the same giant who complained that he can’t afford to pay taxes because he only nets 600K from the 6.3 million he takes in from selling chopped lettuce sandwiches. He explained that right away $200,000 goes to feed his family. That’s a lot of chopped lettuce!
I think he’s already too high.
“While I was in Colorado, I virtually had to fight my way through the homeless people to get to a marijuana shop. And I became very agitated when they assumed I had already consumed marijuana due to the slow cadence of my southern drawl.”
Hmm, wonder where Congressman Fleming got his information. A recent screening of “Reefer Madness” perhaps? I am always astonished by the ability of people to pontificate on subjects about which they are apparently completely ignorant. Guess he’s jealous because the “homeless” aren’t moving to his state in droves. Could it be the shitty economy over which Bobby Jindal has presided? Inquiring minds want to know.
He’s probably describing a news article in a confused way.
The article said that people with criminal records aren’t allowed to work at legal marijuana businesses in Colorado. So people with criminal records who move to Colorado hoping to work in a legal marijuana business end up homeless.
Thats just crazy talk. By eliminating the minimum wage they could double the number of jobs in the US and ensure a landed gentry at the same time.
I assume he’s just merely limiting the “revenues” to sales tax off from cannabis. He’s not counting the revenues off of payroll and property taxes that have come from thousands of people getting steady employment from the booming cannabis start up industry, or the venture capital money and entrepreneurial start ups that have flocked there trying to get in on the groundfloor of the new gold rush.
I was kinda wondering about that, myself. Do the homeless use a packing service, or do they just buy boxes and pack their own stuff? Does the homeless guy drive to CO with his three-legged half-blind dog, or do they fly?
Smoking a joint is the last thing the world need a stupid ignorant paranoid sociopath to do… its just cruelty to dumb animals.
Are there no workhouses?
One more data-free, fact-free Republican right wing posting, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I finally got around to reading all that Dickens I dodged in high school and college when I found out it was free on my Kindle/iPad. I was stunned at the extent to which modern day Republicans sound exactly like all the bad guys. Scrooge, the governors of Oliver Twist’s workhouse–just stunning. You could pick them up, change their clothes and hair and drop them into Cato or Heritage and no one would notice.
I am quite sure the Honorable Representative has no idea what he is talking about. He knows nothing about people who have lost everything and still go on living. What he does know is that homeless people are an easy target who can’t fight back. Mother Teresa of Calcutta would pity him more than the poorest of the poor.
Yes, the Dowd ditz. All I know is people visiting Colorful Colorado lately have, to a person, mentioned how mellow and enjoyable their vacation has been, lol.
Up next: he cites unemployment and homelessness figures that have risen for myriad other reasons as his evidence that it’s all because of legalizing weed. This will be followed by “we can’t afford it” arguments that the added cost of all the new homeless people outweighs any tax revenue and fee receipt increases related to the industry as well as the increases economic activity it generates (velocity of the dollar and all that, etc.).
Maybe, but then again this clown is from Louisiana. 
Isn’t the the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center?