Brownsville Tea Party Association

Archive for the ‘Taxes’ Category

We read last week the updated game hall ordinance for the city of La Feria. They now will charge a non-returnable application fee of $3,000 and a non-refundable license fee of $6,000 for administrative costs of investigation, inspection and licensing. Further, each gaming device earns the city an annual occupational tax of $15. Interesting.

The war goes on between the Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The Senate turned down the House-passed Cut-Cap-Balance bill only to now threaten with a widely antagonizing bill from the Gang of Six that professes to shrink spending while probably increasing taxes. The Senate bill is likely to be defeated, too, unless enough Republicans switch their votes to the Democratic hopes found in the Gang of Six proposal.

It is odd, but our Great Leader benefits no matter what happens. If the debt limit is not increased, he will blame the Republicans for any negative that happens. If the limit is increased, then he can continue the outrageous spending until the next limit is reached and we start the cycle all over again. If he cannot sign a debt limit bill without new taxes, then why is it that the House cannot sign a bill that has new taxes? The people most directly have elected their representatives in the House, according to the Constitution that clearly states that the House shall do the spending. The president is the last block against Congressional action. But Congress can still over-ride the president. Must all of our serious government action resort to this tactic by a weak president?

We must hope that our Democratic friends will soon see through the smoke and look beyond the mirrors. Certain congressional and administrative liberals and socialists seem bent on keeping the economy in the dumps, driving companies out of business, preventing job creation, shutting down energy production, keeping the dollar weak, running up even more debt and keeping as many of us as possible slopping from the government trough. Is that any way to live in a free society?

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Originally published at David Horowitz’s NewsRealBlog
By Chris Rowan

Jonah Goldberg defines Fascism as:

. . . a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.
- Liberal Fascism, p. 23

Eco-fascism is a variant of Fascism that is also totalitarian in the sense that any action by the state to achieve some ecologically-worthy goal is justified. No aspect of human life is off limits. Examples range from bans on smoking in public and the use of cell phones in cars to recent attempts by Congress and the EPA to impose a tax and/or regulatory regimen on our exhalations and emissions made by the burning of fossil fuels. Now it seems we are going to be taxed for the little plastic grocery bags we use to transport our groceries from the supermarket to our cars.

The rationale for the ban is dubious, at best. The cynic in me views the ban as yet one more statist bureaucratic scheme to separate me from my money.

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Saw this on the City of Brownsville website today.  Click on the image to view in a new window:

A workshop and a special meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 5:45 P.M., and 6:00 P.M. in the Commission Chambers on the Second Floor of the Brownsville City Hall – Federal Building, located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, 78520.

The entire PDF of the notice can be viewed here.

Not a good idea to raise taxes in the middle of the worst recession of the past 50 years.

I’m going to the meeting to let them know that I think it’s a stupid idea.

-Chris

Foulmouthed City Commissioner Charlie Atkinson skipped out of Tuesday’s city commission meeting in a manly fury of fireworks and slamming of doors. Oh but before that, the story should have been Commissioner Rose Gowen iterating the need to attract free money and grants. That seemed to be her idea for funding the Sports Park.

Did somebody forget to take a macro-economics class in college? Commissioner, grants and federal subsidies are not free money. There is no such thing as a free lunch either. There is no crying in baseball.

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Did Brownsville city commission Just Raise Our Gas Bills?

At Tuesday’s city commission meeting, Commissioner Edward C. Camarillo thanked part-time city attorney Mark Sossi, Esq.for doing a “great” job. This was said after the lawyer’s presentation on a new franchise agreement between the city and Texas Gas Service. If you remember, Sossi is the same Esquire who earns $120,000 just from the city commission alone.

According to Sossi’s sly presentation, three changes occurred in the franchise agreement and all to the city’s benefit. One, this franchise agreement will last twenty-five years instead of sixty. A franchise agreement is another word for monopoly, right? I thought progressives who fight for social justice were against monopolies, or was that just a fad?

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Congressman Won’t Meet With Constituents But Wants Them To See Him On Television

CORPUS CHRISTI – Taxpayers are footing the bill for Congressman Solomon Ortiz to push his liberal political agenda through an “Ortiz On Demand” TV program and Republican Blake Farenthold called it a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

Ortiz is one of four Congressmen who signed up to air prerecorded videos through MiCongress  On Demand at a startling cost that can range between $500 to $2,000 a month  — and it’s all coming from his taxpayer-funded office account.

In addition to the cost of the programming, there is also more money associated with filming the program to be aired “on demand.”

“This is a perfect example of how Congressman Ortiz has lost touch with the people of South Texas. He has forgotten the value of a dollar,“ said Farenthold a small businessman and owner of a computer consulting firm. “This is typical of Ortiz and the liberals in Washington DC, paying thousands of dollars to put a video on cable instead of uploading for free to YouTube.” 

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(From the Wall Street Journal Online)
By Arthur Laffer

People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.

Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—hold the bulk of their wealth in the nontaxed form of unrealized capital gains? The composition of wealth also responds to incentives. And it’s also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work. Incentives matter.

People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies. According to a 2004 U.S. Treasury report, “high income taxpayers accelerated the receipt of wages and year-end bonuses from 1993 to 1992—over $15 billion—in order to avoid the effects of the anticipated increase in the top rate from 31% to 39.6%. At the end of 1993, taxpayers shifted wages and bonuses yet again to avoid the increase in Medicare taxes that went into effect beginning 1994.”

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