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Now, I am no foe of taxes. I am one of those “tax-and-spend” liberals. But Benanav’s tax is both malicious and absurd. His main reasoning seems to be that students use services but don’t pay taxes. This is pretty striking news to me. A majority of our students live off-campus, meaning they pay rent and thus property taxes. I certainly pay rent. Most students, like me, pay income tax at part-time jobs. And just about every student patronizes local businesses, paying sales tax and supporting these establishments which also pay property tax. Certainly, not all of these taxes paid by these supposedly free-loading students end up in St. Paul’s coffers. But neither do all the taxes paid by anyone else, and besides, this is a far cry from the claim that college students don’t pay taxes.

It’s also suspected that Benanav is targeting students as free-loading off the city. Why not charge a “fee” to suburbanites who commute to work in St. Paul? They use city services, too, and don’t pay property taxes here. I don’t see Benanav going after them for funds to pay for road maintenance and traffic enforcement. I suspect Benanav is showing his true colors as a political grandstander, going after one of the groups least likely to affect his reelection chances.

Benanav and his supporters have chosen to cloak a move that reeks of politics in a mask of populist rhetoric. Can those supporters who claim this is really a progressive tax and not regressive actually say that with a straight face? Gee, better hit up us rich college students, since we have so much money after paying our $23,000 tuition. But wait! We’re not rich yet, we will be, at some unspecified time in the future, so that justifies it. While we’re at it, let’s throw people in jail if there’s a chance they’ll commit a crime in the future, and slap a blanket, pre-emptive “user fee” on all people who might get sick or injured and use up hospital resources.

Besides, apparently it’s a good learning experience to prepare us for the “real world.” Seriously. Who makes this stuff up? Someone who managed to make it through college without working a job or paying rent, only to graduate and realize that people have to do these shocking things?

This entire fiasco also makes it abundantly clear what Benanav thinks of education. Hasn’t it occurred to him that there’s a reason that cities and states have made colleges tax exempt? Our president, governor, and Congress have all slashed funding for students despite tuition costs everywhere rising at a much higher rate than inflation. I don’t care whether his proposed tax is $25 or $2500; Benanav is adding to this trend, putting himself on the same side as Bush and Pawlenty in his disregard for students and higher education. Of course, when Benanav went to college, costs were substantially lower, even affordable. Isn’t a tax on students convenient for him, since he already has his degree?

I’m sure Benanav doesn’t want us asking these questions. So I have a different question: How many students does it take to vote Benanav out of office? Let’s replace him with someone who recognizes that not only are most students in the lowest income brackets, but that they also already pay taxes. More importantly, let’s elect someone who values higher education and acknowledges the increasingly excessive financial burden being shunted to those of us trying to work our way through college.