Which Will Come First, Death or A Tax Increase?

Just when you think it can’t get worse, the federal government seems to find ways to make it worse for all of us!

A federal commission (appointed by Congress) is recommending a 50% increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes to finance highway construction and repair until the government devises another way for motorists to pay for using public roads.

The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is the second group in a year to call for higher fuel taxes.

Want to know why they are recommending this? Simple. You and I are responsible for it!

You see, we are driving less and buying less fuel these days! Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t that the solution that was offered to us to reduce our fuel consumption costs just a few months ago, when gas prices were $4+ a gallon?

But, with motorists driving less and buying less fuel, the current 18.4 cents a gallon gas tax and 24.4 cents a gallon diesel tax fail to raise enough to keep pace with the cost of road, bridge, and transit programs.

In a report expected in late January, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel fuel tax by 12 to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation. The commission will also recommend that states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.

“I’m not excited about a gas tax increase, but the reality is our current gas tax doesn’t pay for upkeep of the system we have now,” said Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, and a member of the highway revenue commission. “We can either let the roads go to hell or we can pay more.”

The dilemma for Congress is that highway and transit programs are dependent for revenue on fuel taxes that are not sustainable. Many Americans are driving less and switching to more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and a shift to new fuels and technologies like plug-in hybrid electric cars will further erode gasoline sales.

Folks, I’m all for having good roads and when I go across a bridge, I want it to hold up under the weight of my car. But, give me a break! You and I already work from January–early May each year to pay all of the federal, state, local, and other taxes that we pay. Nearly five months of my annual salary goes to pay taxes. Five months! Count them, nearly five months.

Do you realize that the reason the American Revolution started was because the British government wanted to raise taxes on the colonists? They wanted citizens to pay taxes that would take from January 1 to about mid-January to cover! Did you get that? About 15 days—Not five months!

When will of the craziness stop? When will we as American citizens say “Enough is enough!” How much more can we take? With the economy like it is today and with projections that it will only get worse during 2009, can we tolerate another tax increase or surcharge like this?

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be communicating my thoughts to my Congressman.

It's Time to Pay Up!

The headline was sensational, to say the least: Hey Feds, It’s Time to Pay Up. The headline sure got my attention. Did it grab yours?

It seems that the Internal Revenue Service is trying to collect billions of dollars in late taxes from nearly half a million federal employees. Documents obtained by WTOP radio through the Freedom of Information Act show the federal employees and retirees did not pay more than $3.5 billion in taxes owed last year.

The agency with the most delinquent employees was the U.S. Postal Service. Nearly 4.2 percent of its 747,000 workers are delinquent. The Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House, has 58 employees who did not pay more than $319,000. More than 1,000 Capitol Hill workers are on the list. About 152,000 of the delinquent federal workers have entered into payment plans.

The IRS would not provide comparable data for the general population.

At first read, I wanted to get angry. How dare government workers, whose salaries are paid through my tax dollars, not pay their fair share in taxes? How dare they skip out on paying their bills? How dare they think they can get away with this?

That was my first reaction.

Then, I calmed down and began to think it through a little more. In my honest opinion (IMHO), this is nothing more than the national media once again trying to incite the people against a few delinquent American citizens who happen to work for the federal government. Take a quick look around your church, school, neighborhood—or heck, your own family. How many people do you know who owe back taxes? Well, I know that’s not a subject to talk about around our Wednesday night church suppers, but I guarantee you that dozens and dozens of people around us each day owe back taxes. Where’s the news media on that one? Where’s the search to see what the general population owes? The IRS won’t tell you? Why not go after them with the Freedom of Information Act? Why not wait to publish your story until you have ALL of the facts and not just the ones that make your point of embarrassing the people who work for our government? Why not tell us, if you want to be fair, how many government employees we currently have in America, and since you included retirees in that number, tell us how many retirees we have in our country. What percentage of current, former, and retired government employees are we talking about here? Maybe, if you did your homework, you might also tell us how many people in the news media are late on paying their taxes? That would be an interesting study!

I suppose if the news media waited until they had all of the facts and could compare apples to apples, then it probably wouldn’t be as good a story and wouldn’t sell as many papers or ads or influence as many people as their sensational headline did today.

I know we have problems in America. I’m not blind to that. However, I am becoming more and more convinced everyday that the leading problem in our country is a biased news media that thinks their actions are above review. I, for one, don’t hold them nearly as high in esteem as they probably think I do—or should!

Stories like this cause my opinion of the news media to drop even lower! You think the President and members of Congress score low in opinion polls? Let’s see where the national and local media rank. I am sure, it won’t be very high.

Let's see if they will ask that question!