But You’ll Have Lower Taxes!
I’m certainly no economic genius but I have learned that there truly is no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody is gonna pay.
The good folks in Oklahoma seem unaware of that. They think they can cut taxes like a nuclear powered weedeater set to turbo and still have governmental services.
I know the Tea Party and crabgrass has taken hold of Oklahoma but I cannot figure out why they think lower taxes will give them a safer infrastructure. Case in point:
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation closed the 76-year-old James C. Nance Memorial Bridge on Jan. 31 for emergency repairs after finding 10 cracks and 260 potential flaws. Repair crews had hoped to open the span by Easter but more cracks appeared after repairs began, pushing the completion date back to June.
Travel between the towns now goes through Norman, about 15 miles to the north, or across a bridge near Byars, about 20 miles southeast, that many say is in worse shape than the shuttered span. Motorists who contributed to the 9,000 crossings daily on the closed bridge have been encouraged to allow for an extra hour to move between the towns.
So you’re gonna have to pay for lunch one way or the other. You can do it the easy way by paying with money or the hard way by washing dishes all day. Or you can do both.
City Manager Dale Bunn said Purcell is losing $150,000 to $200,000 in monthly sales tax revenue and that some retailers have reported a 50 percent drop in business.
“We believe the state is doing all it can safely for the bridge. However, what can they do for the businesses, Purcell Municipal Hospital and the lost city sales tax that is estimated to be down painfully for a community our size?” Bunn said.
So, now they have to pay to fix the bridge that’s in horrible shape because it was neglected and as an extra added treat to brought to you by small government, you can lose 50% of your income.
Now, tell me, Tea Party, were your taxes 50% of your income?
But, they want “the state” to come rescue them and their free market businesses. I say make an example of them. You know, we can take the Tea Party’s attitude on this: screw ‘um.
Damn, this is kinda fun.
Thanks to Mark for the heads up.
I just did my taxes…and it was okay. I don’t mind paying taxes. It’s a lot cheaper than paying for all the services I get individually.
This is what I don’t get about the folks who don’t want to pay any taxes at all…do they not get what taxes provide? And if they want to cut government to bare bones, what do they want to go away?
Let’s see…get rid of national security? Judicial system? Safe food and drugs? Prisons? Schools? Police and fire services? Roads and infrastructure? I could go on and on, but I think Our citizens need to be reminded that our taxes go for way more than “supporting welfare bums” (not talking about Congress, tee hee…). We have become a nation of selfish, stupid whiners, afraid someone is going to get a little bit more than us. If I had a big bunch of money, I think I’d invest in advertising what good our tax dollars provide to ALL of us.
1You get what you pay for and they didn’t want to pay for anything so nothing is what they get in return.
2I don’t believe these TP types are satisfied with lower taxes; I think what they want is no taxes. Even if every corroded gas line in the country blows and there is sewage flowing through our broken streets, I figure they won’t care ’cause they’ll be flying overhead in their bulletproof helicopters like the Russian mafia tsars they seem to aspire to emulate.
3We could all save 50% on our tax bills by sending the bills for Dubya’s two unfunded wars to those the wars benefited most, the Koch brothers, Dick Cheney, Halliburton, etc. DiFi and her husband can take the bill for the excessive NSA spying. Let the neocons pay for their own global aspirations and tantrums.
Schools, roads, bridges and all the things that benefit us as a society for those I’m willing to pay.
4Republican fiscal responsibility, overdrawn at the bank.
5Pea Tardiers! Really, really stooped palookas! You are right! They don’t want any taxes, period! Just as them who will pay for all the medical treatment and rehabilitation of our wounded warriors and they immediately shut their pie holes. Its not that they are embarrassed, but they suddenly realize if they said what they really think, as in “who the Hell gives a damn” they would run the risk of becoming dog food. I’ll say it again about taxes ” they are the rent we pay for civilization.” If they do not want civilization, then there is still at least one island in what used to be the Dutch East Indies that they could relocate to. Just one hitch. The natives ate the late Michael Rockefeller when he visited them decades ago. And they are still hungry.
6Taxes are to TEApublicans as sunlight is to vampires.
7This whole “OMG TAXES!!!!!” thing is making me tired. You get what you pay for – something that the Tea Party parasites don’t understand.
It’s like the people who would rather pay an extra $500/month to live in a gated community than to pay $100/month in city taxes that would pay for adequate police protection – or who would rather drive on gravel roads than pay enough in highway taxes to keep the roads maintained. (Some of them may own car repair shops and appreciate the extra business – but most of them don’t do cost/benefit analysis.)
Now, these moochers want a big government bail-out? Who do they think they are – bankers?
8Will this be a gravel bridge, like the rural roads Texas will have? The ones that tractors won’t be able to use after it rains?
9Wonderful comments. Thank you. It does remind me of a discussion I had many years ago with a Libertarian. I said “so would you quit using roads and libraries and parks?” He said “No, but I would if I could.”
10Dragging up memories. In a lot of small rural towns, the men all get together after work and take their hammers and boards and shovels and front end loaders and trucks and graders and fix the roads, build buildings, lay pipeline, etc etc. High school students are taught about livestock, maintenance, fence building, etc etc and used to go help on ranches and farms to work the cattle (that means castrate and give shots, in case you hadn’t heard it), build fences, etc. but Ross Perot got rid of that stuff. The thing is, rural communities do more on their own without governmental interference. If you have enough folks with enough time, energy and money to do that, it makes a difference. But you can’t have folks like Abbott diverting water from rural areas to urban areas (which is part of his plan, water theft) and keep on being self sufficient.
11With you on the water thing, Marge Wood. Our gohmerts are sending us into a sure fire hell of a fire season this summer. While their gohmert buddies are playing golf in the desert with water stolen from us and producing the most worthless crop ever, iceberg lettuce with irrigation from our water. As for Los Angeles? If they want water, let those John Birch gohmerts pray themselves up a tsunami.
12If these Tea Party persons are so determined to emulate our foremothers, then let them remember “penny wise, pound foolish”. Or “a stitch in time saves nine”. Or “you get what you pay for”.
If one is born into a world of paved roads, safe bridges, and clean drinking water, it is important to remember they got that way because someone paid for them. AND that they won’t exist if someone doesn’t CONTINUE to pay for them.
13In rural east Tennessee in the early ’70s often I saw school bus drivers pull to a stop in front of a bridge, have all the children exit the bus, walk across the bridge, and then wait on the other side while the bus driver drove over the bridge (which usually crossed a deep ravine).
This was in case the bridge couldn’t hold the weight of the bus. Now that’s poverty (and courage).
14I should have added:
We should not put up with those conditions in this country.
15The bridge story is much worse than this, really. Those recent cracks? The State caused them. By repairing the bridge. Yep. The bridge had some cracks, so the State DOT did some outside-weld repairs, then found out too late that the bridge is made of an unusual manganese alloy which can crack when repaired with that type of weld. I am not making this up – the repairs broke the bridge. Dozens more cracks appeared since they first closed it, to the point where they can’t say when it will reopen.
16I keep wondering at what point these gohmerts figure out that if you drown the government in the bathtub, you have no America to brag about. So far, it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.
17PKM, with you on the water theft thing. It seems that water rights and availability have been a war scenario over time out west. Right now an amazing amount of water is diverted to keep the palm trees in Hollywood green. That water has to come from somewhere and it is usually taken from areas that could use it for crops, lately in California, to water dairy cows and other types of livestock. But heck, hey, who gives a damn about that when palm trees are considered sacred icons?
18I agree with what you folks have painted as the T Party’s vector. I would restate or repeat with emphasis their utter disdain for social safety net programs, Medicaid, Medicare to some extent, ADC, etc. They are unopposed to building roads especially if their friends who own or work for related companies benefit. Now if in the last 10 years of my life I live on canned cat food and ultimately die at the bus stop near a public hospital (because I can’t afford ER treatment), they are all ok with that ’cause obviously I am an economic failure.
19re: water, I am talking about stealing water from rural areas of Texas and piping it or trucking it to big cities. Abbott said, “I don’t see anything wrong from taking water from where it’s not needed, to where it IS needed.” Well, as a friend said, she didn’t know of anywhere in Texas where water isn’t needed. I know for a fact that several months ago Weinert, Texas, a small town, was forced to cut its water use by 60%. Folks out there are scared. And nobody is trying hard to explain to folks out there that the rumor that Obama is shipping water from there to China, is not a fact. I’m serious. I’m trying.
20Another factor to consider – Oklahoma law does not allow municipalities to levy property taxes. The main source of revenue for an Oklahoma town is sales tax. The loss of revenue to Purcell is devastating. Many bedroom suburbs around Oklahoma cities starve because their citizens work and shop in the cities and not in their small communities. Yet the commuters still whine about having adequate police, fire, EMS and streets.
21We can live without paying any taxes. Cavemen, rain forest tribes, slaves, none of them ever paid taxes.
22Our (supply your own adjective) governor last year promised to increase education funding and lower taxes. She tried to lower taxes by cutting the top income tax rate, so higher income people would benefit and lower income people get nothing from it. Fortunately the state supreme court found a flaw and declared it unconstitutional. They’re trying again this year. You can tell who she likes, since she also rejected Medicaid expansion. Of course, lower income people don’t give her the big campaign bucks, so I guess that explains it.
As for increasing education funding, the latest stats show us leading the nation in decrease in per student spending
(over 20 percent) over the last 5 years.
Teachers and other state employees need raises also. Many other needs here but all you hear from her is cut taxes.
Too many people in this state vote against their own best interests, and they probably will do it again.
23True Uncle Dave, but they did have chiefs, and I was taught as a child in Az (oh no!) that the chiefs among the Apaches distributed the food that was hunted, and if there were not enough–it was the chefs’ family that went without….that part would be a good thing to instate in our government…it might lead to a better treatment for our warriors (the hard on that congress people, senators and the like have for bigger toys is shameful, we need to reapportion our defense money which would cut it back, no more gazillions dollar non working jets when we are fight a ground war) the old, children/mothers of breast fed infants, and warriors/hunters, then the rest is the way the tribe feeding went. The old where needed for their wisdom, the young for the future, the hunters/warriors for food and defense, and we have really messed up because our old often are vicious–don’t you cut my Medicare–screw everyone, I’ve got (unless you are a no account cat food eater) mine and I deserve it! I say put them on ice floes, hell, they are the greediest generation that has ever been–the ones I saw in my care homes were totally abandoned (barely had visitors on holidays) and were costing at the least, $2300 a month to take care of them…there was no way the families wanted those grouchy complaint people in their lives, they had to work harder to support them, and single kids were screwed, but by all means let’s let them die the “Greatest Generation” who fought a war and came home for the most part unscathed and to a grateful world–nobody’s grateful to our soldiers today–it’s disgusting…
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