I for one am tired of giving away my hard earned cash. Every day there is a new tax, toll or fee that will just piss people off and be misused as always. These extra payments aren’t for the product or service, but to supplement other areas of government. If the government would stop spending money for stupid stuff, (yes I said stupid stuff) maybe we wouldn’t need the supplemental pocket picking.
I offer as an example. My town recently hired a consultant, at a $20,000 fee to research whether or not town employees should be subject to more pay grades with lesser raise percentages per grade, while also adding a cap to each grade. If the changes are to be made, the employees may lose some of the wages they currently get. The hope is that this will help with the fiscal budget. Here’s a taxpayer thought. Ask me. I will tell you for free, if you want to save money, don’t pay someone $20G to tell you what should be common sense.
Added Taxes are getting out of control. Take the Gas Tax for example. We are taxed on a state level and a federal level. I’m sure we should only be taxed once on any given item or service, but I digress. What am I paying for? Why gasoline? I’m told it is to fix road and bridges. Isn’t that what excise tax is for? Toll Roads? We are forever hearing rumblings about raising the gas tax. Why? don’t you get enough already? If you can’t afford to fix the roads, stop hiring overpriced, under qualified contractors. Turn the penal colonists into contract workers. They can do more than pick up trash. Hell they used to break rocks with pick axes. Let’s teach them a real trade and let them earn their room and board.
While we are paying double tax and outrages prices at the pumps, oil companies are recording record prices. Where is the Federal Trade Commission and why isn’t congress filibustering about this? The same could be said about cigarette tax. This was instituted to generate revenue for Cessation programs and anti-smoking campaigns. Instead about 5% is used as intended and the rest are used to supplement budget gaps. Non-smokers champion these taxes as a punishment for those that smoke. (full disclosure, former smoker blogging). Is this fair? Was it fair to tax tea? Why not disposable diapers? They clog landfills and introduce fecal matter into the environment. Would parents that spend a fortune on Pampers® be willing to pay a nappy tax? I think not. They want to tax soda to combat obesity, why not coffee, it would generate more revenue for the state than soda. The problem here is they are taxing them self into a corner. As the taxes and prices increase, user-ship decreases, revenue decreases.
We have gotten comfortable letting citizens bleed cash because of government mismanagement. Tolls on roads are meant to recoup the cost of construction. Once paid for in full the tolls should come down. Not here, the roads are paid for, but are breaking down, so we need money to fix them. The rub is that only those that drive the select portion of road is penalized. This again is grossly unfair. “ Such is the way of life” as the saying goes.
Between gas and tolls, excise tax and insurance, those that can’t afford to drive, take public transportation. Those people are going to be walking soon as yet another round of fare hikes is coming. I used to ride the bus for a dime or quarter, now it is about $2.50. The transportation authority claims it can’t afford to run. So cut some services. Instead of running 2 buses, run one bus for both routes and cut the frequency of the stops. Do an internal audit and eliminate the redundancies. Gone are the days when if you couldn’t afford to operate, you closed down. Nowadays you squeeze the stone until blood runs dry.
The Post Office is raising the price of stamps again. They played with the idea of cutting delivery days, but no, let’s raise prices again. We are in an age when they should be cutting back. We are moving away from mail service, and moving to the digital age. It is inevitable that the post office should fail. Private delivery services will take over. The more they raise prices, the less mail we post. Email and Online bill pay are free!!!!
I’m tired of being told we don’t have enough. Stop spending on consultants, stop voting yourself pay raises, start doing your government shopping at Walmart® and Target®. We don’t need to pay people to tell us what we already know, or should know. I am sick of paying Taxes, Tolls & Fees.
No comments:
Post a Comment