GOP governor pushes Texas’ first sales tax hike in 30 years

[random3]

GOP governor pushes Texas’ first sales tax hike in 30 years

https://www.hobbsnews.com/2019/04/10/gop...-30-years/

[pbrower2a]

The only way in which to have low overall taxes without grossly-inadequate public services (bad roads will kill you, and inadequate schools will stunt your kids' intellectual growth) is to not need to provide certain services or to be unusually efficient in providing those services. Rural areas have low taxes because they don't have to pay teachers well enough to keep them from doing something else (schoolteachers are salesmen, as I have discovered by doing both teaching and sales; police are easier to keep honest when there are no local mobs to put them on the informal payroll of bribe-collectors) and don'tneed much more than two-lane blacktops to connect neighboring towns. A four-lane freeway west of Lincoln or north of Omaha in Nebraska, the Dakotas, or most of Montana or Wyoming is really leading to or from Duluth, Des Moines, the Twin Cities, Kansas City, Omaha or Lincoln, Denver, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, Calgary, or Winnipeg -- maybe Chicago or somewhere in California -- and gets the bulk of the long-haul truck travel. Roads are cheap to build, but diminishing returns come fast. A four-lane divided highway is enough to connect Lincoln on the one side and either Salt Lake City or Denver on the other, but it would be wholly inadequate in northeastern New Jersey or anywhere between Bakersfield and Tijuana.

But not all of us can be farmers. Farmers can get away with small government until the market goes awry. Then come the farm subsidies that tide the farmer through for a short time, only for the giant agribusiness firms with their economies of scale the more genteel means of squeezing out the family farmer. Oh, well!

I can think of only one way for a jurisdiction to have low taxes and good public services. Utah has the lightest smokers and drinkers in America.

[elect21]

Americans scream globalism is wonderful
because there would be free trade, no borders, and no wars, but actually globalism means that the world would be run by a few elites and you couldn't escape high taxes or draconian laws.

[David Horn]

(01-28-2021, 12:00 AM)elect21 Wrote: Americans scream globalism is wonderful
because there would be free trade, no borders, and no wars, but actually globalism means that the world would be run by a few elites and you couldn't escape high taxes or draconian laws.

Thank you Captain Obvious.  

[elect21]

You can fight tyranny by draining welfare, working off the books, and not paying taxes.

Everything would grind to a halt if everyone went on strike.

[David Horn]

(01-28-2021, 06:36 PM)elect21 Wrote: You can fight tyranny by draining welfare, working off the books, and not paying taxes.

Everything would grind to a halt if everyone went on strike.

That isn't "fighting tyranny", it's an oxymoron: organized anarchy.  If you like the idea of living with no rules, go somewhere they actually do that and report back (assuming you survive of course).

[pbrower2a]

(01-31-2021, 09:14 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-28-2021, 06:36 PM)elect21 Wrote: You can fight tyranny by draining welfare, working off the books, and not paying taxes.

Everything would grind to a halt if everyone went on strike.

That isn't "fighting tyranny", it's an oxymoron: organized anarchy.  If you like the idea of living with no rules, go somewhere they actually do that and report back (assuming you survive of course).

[random3]

Does anyone get the feeling that anyone supporting the police state now is a paid NSA shill?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...l-networks

[pbrower2a]

(01-31-2021, 09:02 PM)random3 Wrote: Does anyone get the feeling that anyone supporting the police state now is a paid NSA shill?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2...l-networks

Deal me in! I would be delighted to extinguish some ideological flames. Can I sign up?

[Einzige]

(01-28-2021, 12:00 AM)elect21 Wrote: Americans scream globalism is wonderful
because there would be free trade, no borders, and no wars, but actually globalism means that the world would be run by a few elites and you couldn't escape high taxes or draconian laws.

That's just capitalism, dude.

[March3]

Those in the US are just slaves today.

The elites make a decree and everyone must obey it.

The globalists force us to pay taxes, wear clothes, be unarmed, use seatbelts, be nonsmokers, be silent, wear masks, buy insurance, submit our DNA and fingerprints, get vaccines, and pay high prices.