Yep, last week saw an election, and there were many high-stakes issues facing the country, the state and even our humble neck of the woods.
For those of you who turned out, you done good, regardless of the outcome. And what an interesting batch of outcomes there were.
Locally, and for the most part statewide, voters decided that more taxes were not the answer to the issues they faced. Numerous bond issues and tax measures were voted down, as if the residents of the area were tired of paying more and more.
I’ve pointed out that in the grand scheme of things, the taxes that burden the average citizen of this country are pretty staggering and cover just about everything we do or see. I’m not really sure we’re getting the proper bang for our bucks, so to speak, when you consider that costs go up while services stay flat.
The other thing that stays flat, or at least doesn’t keep up with costs, is income.
Another libertarian whom I admire pointed out the issues with taxation that directly affect people like us: The lower class pays nothing. The upper class hires really good attorneys and accountants and end up paying minimally. Us, as the middle class, end up handing over 24 percent of our income, which pays mostly for war and welfare.
Or, as an astute person in a Facebook reel (weird, that) pointed out, referring to the election of a socialist mayor in New York, that once the whole “tax the rich” ideas hit, the rich will head elsewhere, and that means the middle class becomes the rich. Again, us folks caught in the middle foot the bill, while being told we’re hateful or nazi or racist when we complain about it.
It’s not that jail bonds or school construction bonds or raised taxes to fund school operations are bad ideas, but the libertarian lady pointed out that the problem is in revenue. It’s that everything you can think of has become more and more expensive.
Simply put, it’s a crisis of affordability.
Everyone will have an idea of why that is, and most of those ideas will be right, but there will be a breaking point. (Or, as the great Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”)
Several ideas worth considering to reverse the trend exist, but the run contrary to the current zeitgeist that politicians embrace, since those policies strip the power that politicians have amassed and return it to where it rightly belongs — the states and the people.
Some of those ideas (h/t Mike Church and Josie Glabach):
Abolish the income tax
Restore the 10th Amendment
Stop printing money and stop deficit spending.
Enact term limits
Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment
Put full force in the Sherman antitrust law
End policies that favor Big Ag
Tariff foreign companies to force products that can be made to be made in the U.S.
Bring God back into everything.
Most of these common-sense ideas will kick-start our economy and solve numerous funding issues, and the people can get back to the business of living.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
