The Chickens Aren't Driving - a Taxing Situation

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The chickens are coming home to roost, but they sure are not driving. In Europe a gallon of gas is $9.00 in US dollars and here come the protests. For years governments have been adding taxes on gasoline to fund roads and many other things…in Germany even pensions. Such taxes were largely invisible, until now that is.

No wonder they have all those motor scooters in Italy and now the two passenger Smart car. Of course the same is true in the U.S. where the federal government and states add taxes to gasoline, not a bad thing of course if the money is used to maintain roads and related expenses. But isn’t it interesting how we perceive being taxed.

I doubt I can name them all, but you have your good old income tax, state and federal in most cases. Imagine there actually was a period of over a hundred years when there was no income tax. Interestingly there is a tax on the money you gain from saving or investing the money you already paid tax on and then again on the money you accumulate from what you earned and invested and then want to give to your children so that money is taxed three times. It’s called an estate tax and that too is both federal and state in most cases. If you have any doubt about the ability for the government to stick with a plan and not be tempted to just keep spending, remember the estate tax was designed simply to help pay for World War I. Talk about how hard it is to pay off a credit card.

Take a look at a phone bill or cable bill or rental car bill or hotel bill and each one is laced with more federal and local taxes. Did you ever actually pay for a hotel room anything close to what the hotel quoted you? I just stayed in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia, the room was $195.00, but then there was the state occupancy tax of $13.65, the local occupancy tax of another $13.65, $5.40 tax on parking and $.70 tax on the charge to use the internet connection. But I must admit by the looks of downtown Philly, they could use more money.

There are assorted tariffs and other stuff we never see, but are built into what we buy and use. There is the very obvious sales tax so we are taxed on what we buy with the money left after we have paid tax on the money we earn or if you take the money to buy something from your investments you get to pay income, capital gains and sales tax……whoopee. Let’s see if you rent a car that is actually taxed…….how many times? I give up, it’s way beyond my little brain, and I failed calculus in college.

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• The free market almost always does a better job of handling things than big government.
• People are better able to spend their own money than the government is.
• As government power increases, the people's liberty retracts.

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• The free market almost always does a better job of handling things than big government.
• People are better able to spend their own money than the government is.
• As government power increases, the people's liberty retracts.

I sure can't argue with that view, but there are a lot of people who apparently do and I suspect they will be packing the voting booths come November.

People seem to vote for the person who promises the most without regard to the long -term or wider implications.

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I sure can't argue with that view, but there are a lot of people who apparently do and I suspect they will be packing the voting booths come November.

People seem to vote for the person who promises the most without regard to the long -term or wider implications.

Yup. Vote for me & I'll cancel the gas tax. We'll just make Big Bad Oil pick up the tab. I'm sure they would never raise their prices to cover the cost.