Im willing to give Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the benefit of the doubt that he didnt choose to berth his new yacht in Rhode Island just to avoid Massachusetts taxes.
Still, the yacht issue is another embarrassment for Kerry, who didnt have such a great week last week. First he was forced to admit that he didnt have the 60 votes he would need to get the climate change bill he has worked so hard on over the past year to the Senate floor. Instead, he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will settle for a much less ambitious bill that would focus on the oil spill cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico and tighter household energy efficiency standards. And even the more limited bill may not get passed given the limited sense of bipartisanship in the Senate these days.
Still, talk of Kerrys new $7 million yacht and the estimated $437,500 in sales tax and $70,000 in annual excise tax he will save by docking it in tax-free Rhode Island hounded him in recent days after the
We pay enormous taxes to the state of Massachusetts and there is nothing illegal here, he was quoted as saying by
Lets not get silly here, he said, according to
Can I get out of here? he asked, after he was pelted with questions at an event on Monday, according to cable station
Still, people will make an issue out of such matters, if only for the sheer pleasure of making John Kerry uncomfortable. Boat builders in Massachusetts are even complaining that Kerry chose to build the yacht in New Zealand instead of here in the good ole U.S. I guess Kerry will just have to buy another yacht in Massachusetts and park it in Boston Harbor.
