Coming soon...Tax on air...

A Nation of Fools by Peary Perry



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“Coming soon….tax on air!!!!”







Every day in this country brings us new joy, doesn’t it? You can never say you are bored with what our government is doing to us on a daily basis can you? Most of the things that will apply to each and every one of us are hidden somewhere in some sort of legislation that gets passed and put into effect without any input or commentary by any of us poor working stiffs.



So, we are expected to be cheerful and sing as we trudge off to the mines each day, hi-ho, hi-ho it’s off to work with go. Sometimes I begin to believe our elected officials really think all of us will get our greatest rewards when we die rather than anytime we may have here on planet Earth. Why should we have any pleasure or fun? They seem to revel in theft, corruption and just plain stupidity each and every day of the week.



Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear of some legislator in some part of the country caught again with their hand in our cookie jar. I don’t know about you, but frankly I’m sick of hearing elected officials tell us that … ‘The rules weren’t clear’ or ‘ I didn’t understand that stealing was not allowed…’ We aren’t dealing with second graders here, we are dealing with grown men and women who supposedly are astute enough to get elected and placed into positions of trust to represent our interests, not their own.



Well, enough about this issue…..



Let’s talk about taxes. Several items have been brought to my mind this past week.



One is the tax on gasoline. Most of the state governments as well as the federal government are talking about raising the tax on a gallon of gasoline. Why? Well it’s very simple, see we are driving less as well as buying vehicles that get better gas mileage than they used to do so the total amount of gasoline being consumed is actually going down due to our being more efficient. You’d think this was a good thing, wouldn’t you? But no, the government (both local and federal) see tax revenues declining due to our being more efficient and therefore they need to increase the amount of tax to equal the revenue they once were receiving. So, using this analogy I suppose when we are able to buy vehicles that get 100 miles to the gallon, we will be paying more in taxes since the government still needs the revenue. Sounds right to me, how about you?



The same explanation is going for our electricity providers who are seeing a reduction in total usage due to better insulation and more energy saving appliances. Got to keep those tax revenues up no matter how efficient we become. Reduction of governmental expense seems to be a foreign concept, doesn’t it?



If you want to look at a harbinger of what could happen in this country you should study the current economic conditions taking place in Greece. This country is in serious trouble and the future doesn’t look well for them any way they go. If they cut government spending in order to reduce their debt, then tax revenues will fall causing more spending to be required to be cut resulting in less tax revenues and on and on. Spending more government money creates more debt so this isn’t the answer as well. They are in a no-win situation due to their massive and unsustainable debt load.



Our local government borrowed a huge amount of money to build a rail system which has resulted in less than one fourth of the expected daily passengers. Since the fare revenue is so drastically reduced, the rail administrators came up with a brilliant plan. Increase the fares to cover the operational shortfall. So, instead of lowering the fares (basically think of it as a tax) to encourage more riders on a daily basis, they discourage riders by increasing the fares. I suppose if only one person rode each day, then untimely that person would be charged the entire operational fee for the entire system.



The problem ( as I see it) is that the majority of persons running our government have never operated a business or had to cover payroll, pay taxes or deal with employees, banks and the IRS. Once you have done this, you begin to understand what it takes to actually manage something in order to remain in business. Governments have no profit motivation since their source of revenue is virtually endless. Opening up credit and reducing the amount of governmental interference is the quickest and surest way to get the economy on the run once again.



Otherwise we end up like Greece, looking for new ways to tax the citizens...such as making us pay for the air we breathe.



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