Looking on the Bright Side

The fundamentals of nature are repeated generally throughout nature’s existence. Learn them in one area and usually you can apply them to another. Christ did that with parables. Transfer the knowledge learned in one field to another. It works because fundamental concepts are universal. Two plus two equals four, no matter what may be counted, where or when. If a democratic government wants to increase taxes, then what they do is convince those who are needed to approve the tax to vote for it.

The 16th amendment to the Constitution (the income tax amendment) was an illustrative example. To get people to vote for it, it was sold to the people by telling them that it would only apply to the wealthy, and that it would never be more than two percent of their income. So the majority believed that they would not be taxed and that the wealthy could afford the two percent income tax. That lie finally convinced the majority to approve it, so on Feb. 25, 1913 the 16th Amendment became law. Within forty years most working people paid income tax, and the highest tax bracket was increased to ninety percent (no thirty-nine percent, or so). The American Congress uses another vote-convincing-technique to assure that a bill passes. When congress needs a reluctant representative’s vote, then they add ‘pork’ to that congress person’s district to the bill to gain the bill’s approval. Locally, the City of Lake Geneva wants the Premier Resort Area Tax (it is just a fancy name for a city sales tax), but it needs to convince residents to approve the tax. So what technique will the city council use to convince Lake Geneva Residents to approve a city sales tax? Who knows but let’s guess:

• Threaten to cut city services, although this isn’t likely because other than sewer, water and garbage pickup there is not much left to cut that would hurt residents more than city employees. Besides City Administrator Utah (public gunfighter) Oborn would not support that approach.
• Convince residents that it is in their best interest to pay a city sales tax? The sales presentation will be that the city will collect double or triple the amount from the tourists as opposed to residents. But even if it were true, an average resident over the year would still be paying about 100 times more Premier Resort Area Tax than the amount that a typical visitor would pay during a short visit (100 to 1 are not good odds) and taxing non-residents to pay resident’s expenses, when residents don’t pay theirs is not right either.

Who knows what the city will really do? The Premier Resort Area Tax was originally designed to get  the tourists to help pay for the extra wear on the city’s roads and extra city utilities costs that they cause. To do this without also placing an extra burden on residents the city would need to add a “City Sales Tax Credit” to the “Premier Resort Area Tax” that is equal to the Premier Resort Area Tax that will be collected from residents (about 50% of the total Premier Resort Area Tax) and have that amount deducted proportionally from all resident’s property taxes in a manner that is similar to the lottery Tax Credit. The problem with this clever approach is that it may not be legal and the city council could change it any time even if they say they wouldn’t, because “political lying” is a highly protected new form of “freedom of speech” that is immune to prosecution. Property taxes are paid by property owners, as well, not most residents.

One thing is probably certain. Taxes are going up.

Grandest Person

Kylynn Cardena wearing the outfit her brother Kolton put on her for this photo.
Kylynn has had leukemia for seven years and she’s kicking that dread disease’s butt.
You’re going to see a lot more of Kylynn as time goes by here.