Firefighters watch as house burns to ground

[vcjack]

My grandparents lived in a rural area for years and paid taxes and all fees to the nearest municipality (which wasn't that far away) and yet STILL they knew that if they needed any emergency assistance they (or someone else) would have to drive several miles to a place where an ambulance would come even though by law they were should have every right to expect the service.

[hifigator]

Oct 5, 2010 17:10:51 GMT -5 The Stig said:

This sort of reminds me of the "unbundling" of airline fares we've seen in the past decade. Airlines want to advertise that they have the lowest fares, so they take all sorts of things like baggage handling, check-in fees, food, and drink out of the fare and charge them as separate fees. So they get fliers thinking they're paying $50 for a flight, only to make them pay $150 when they show up with bags, check in at the airport, and want something to eat on the flight.

It's the same with the politicians in this place. They want to campaign on the platform that they didn't raise taxes, but they also want to campaign on the platform that they provided their constituents with all sorts of services like firefighting and whatever else they're spending money on. So instead of making the firefighting fee a normal tax like it should be, they make it an "optional extra" and then tell the people how fiscally responsible they are.

In this case the politicians involved all happened to be Republicans, but in this "TAX INCREASES ARE EVIL" environment, all the parties play the same game. Most Americans are too stupid to realize that in order to get all the things they want to get from government, they have to pay higher taxes. They kick and scream if you talk about raising taxes on them, but "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"

I especially agree with your second point. Semantics and election years sure seem to follow each other, don't they? Down here in Florida that is one of the contested topics in a number of different elections. The question of a candidate's record has come up in numerous occasions. In a couple of cases, the question of raising taxes has been disputed and essentially, the argument is that the bill in question didn't raise taxes. But it did implement a service fee on a particular item. Now I don't care too much about the legal mumbo jumbo. If there is a surcharge put on an item by the government and if that surcharge goes to the government, then that is a tax. And if the surcharg was raised, the someone raised taxes. Calling it something other than a tax so that you can claim you didn't raise taxes is just playing games.