Taxing Priorities

Although I can retail-therapy with the best of them, I realized something on Monday:

I didn't buy a single eligible thing during Florida's back-to-school season Sales Tax Holiday.

I don't need anything in the school-supply category, but usually I can find at least one or two pieces of clothing in the under-$50 range. In last year's Holiday, I went on a small book-shopping spree. This year, though: nothing. I tried on a pair of jeans at Gap (and did not receive the promised free-iTunes card, but at 99¢ it wasn't worth any effort), but wasn't inspired enough to save the $2 or so in tax.

(By the way: the news reports told us that shoppers saved somewhere around $38 million this year. I wonder why they didn't they report it from the opposite angle: that the Holiday cost the state $38 million in revenue — revenue that has to be accounted for somewhere else, such as in property tax increases and cuts in school funding?)

Stranger still, I did buy something during the hurricane-supply Holiday earlier this year: two blue tarps. A shift in priority, or in sensibilities, perhaps?