The headline said it all. “Newsom under fire as California gas tax hike sends pump prices even higher.”
The Fox News story report said:
California motorists are set to pay even more at the pump starting Wednesday as another gas tax increase takes effect, prompting some of the state’s Republican lawmakers to warn that added costs will further squeeze residents already shouldering some of the highest fuel prices in the nation.
California’s GOP congressional delegation, led by Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., to suspend the planned 2.2-cent-per-gallon hike, which would raise the state’s excise gas tax to 63.4 cents per gallon.
The lawmakers say that figure doesn’t include the state’s sales tax and other local fees, bringing the total surcharge burden to about $1.15 per gallon at California pumps.
In short? In short, as the late President Reagan would say: “Well, there they go again.”
By now, the American people get the deal. If they so much as blink, some politician somewhere is going to propose raising their taxes. A mere partial list:
Taxes on gas.
Taxes on food.
Taxes on booze.
Taxes on cars.
Taxes on property.
Taxes on electricity.
The list goes on and on. As here, with this list out of Greenville, Virginia:
Dog License Tax
The Board of Supervisors imposes a local dog license tax on all dogs over four months of age. Taxes are not levied on any dog that is considered a medical assistance, sight dog, or hearing-impaired assistance dog.
A vaccination certificate signed by a licensed veterinarian must be presented.
Individual dog license are $10.00 each.
Kennel tags are $40.00 for 20 dogs and $50.00 for 50 dogs.
Dog licenses are nonrefundable and cannot be transferred.
The Greenville dog tax is not a loner or a one-off.
Go anywhere in any state, city, or village in America, and one can be sure that the officials running the place are busy taxing residents for anything from dogs to gas to income, property, and more. As with that current example from California.
And heck. When I was growing up in Massachusetts, our Commonwealth was widely known by its citizens as “Taxachusetts.”
The latest to go down this tax road, as that Fox story indicates, is California. (And not for the first time. Back when he ran for governor of California in 1966, an actor named Ronald Reagan made it a big issue.)
Which at last raises a question.
Isn’t it time for a “politician tax”? Which would operate on an iron rule? That rule being: Every time a politician raises taxes of any kind, isn’t it time to have that politician automatically taxed?
Whether the proposed taxer is a federal official — a president, Senator, or congressman — or even a state official, governor, or state legislator, or a local official, mayor, county official, or city councillor?
Call the new tax a “Politicians’ Tax.” A tax that would be levied only on the official proposing the tax or voting in favor of it.
And correspondingly, if and when the official proposes a tax cut, then that would be the signal for that official to have his or her taxes personally cut by the amount of taxes he is proposing as a tax cut.
Would this be out of the ordinary? Certainly based on past behavior, yes. But at this point, it seems impossible to keep federal, state, and local officials from raising taxes. Particularly when government officials are all too willing to raise their own federal, state, or local salaries for whatever political job they hold.
A place to start?
California would be at the top of the list.
The big movie star of a state regularly produces news stories like the one above. Which, again, started by headlining: “Newsom under fire as California gas tax hike sends pump prices even higher.”
This being the Newsom objective, if passed, he would be subject to the “California Politicians’ Tax.” A tax that would apply only in California to politicians who proposed and voted for raising, in this instance, the gas tax.
The list is long of tax-proposing politicians who could be targeted for a federal, state, or local “politicians’ tax.”
And then? And then it would be very curious indeed to see how many politicians stop proposing taxes and learn to live within their means.
A serious proposal?
Time will tell.
But it is very safe to say that there are countless Americans in all 50 states who have had it with this, that, or another politician whose latest not-so-clever idea is to raise taxes on whomever or whatever.
Including your dog.
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Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
