Category Archives: Gas Taxes

Back to the grindstone

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A week ago I was on my way to Nashville. J and I are now back. The initial flurry on our return, checking the mail, doing errands postponed from last week, recovering from a bit of physical overexertion, are over.

Like any long anticipated event, there’s a let down when it’s over. The excitement, built by anticipation over the last weeks and months, is gone.

Sole Mio Banquet Room, Nashville, TN

Sole Mio Banquet Room, Nashville, TN

Last Saturday, J and I were invited by a number of blogger friends to dinner at a small Italian place, Sole Mio, a couple of blocks from the Music City Center. I had met about half of group from the St. Louis NRAAM in 2012. Some have become good friends despite the fact we’ve only met, face-to-face, once or twice before.

As bloggers, we all have our separate interests. Some write solely about guns and gun issues. Others, like my friend, Kelly, AKA, Ambulance Driver, writes about EMS topics. Some write about their military experiences and Jim, a new writer, presented me with signed copies of his books. All of us, however, have one common topic that we all write about at one time or another: Shooting.

It was a fun night. We agreed to meet again in a year at the next NRAAM in Louisville. Mrs Crucis and I have already marked our calendars for May 20-22, 2016. They’re still counting the attendance. The Annual Meeting continued through Sunday. The attendance by Saturday night was over 78,000. When Sunday’s attendance is added, I expect that number to exceed 80,000. The question is by how much. IMO, the Music City Center was too small. I hope Louisville is larger.

Next year we hope to take a couple of local friends with us.

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I may have escaped the political escapades in Missouri for a few days. That didn’t mean it stopped. In the Missouri Senate, the Tax ‘n Spend crowd wants to raise Missouri’s gas tax by 10¢. IIRC, it sits today at 19¢. This crowd says it must go up to 29¢ or we’ll lose some federal money.

Spend! Spend! Spend! And when the money is spent, it’s never spent on what we really need. Missouri has allocated well over a billion dollars in the last decade to fix the state’s roads and bridges. Most of that money, once it was appropriated, was re-directed to more politically sensitive projects. MODOT is a joke. Nixon won’t release funds already allocated while claiming to need more. Now the idiots want more!? No! The Missouri Senate has blocked this tax and no-spend bill. At least for the moment.

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The ‘Pubs have three announced candidates so far, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. They all made their announcements in public, in person, and made the media rounds afterward.

On the democrat side, Hillary announced her candidacy…via social media—not in public, not in person, and no interviews with the media. Instead, she rented a Darth Vader van, went to Iowa, found a restaurant, ran out everyone who was there, filled it with hired supporters and created a media event. And, like she did in 2008, departed without leaving a tip—verified by the on-site security cameras.

What a comparison: Cruz, Paul, Rubio, real people meeting real people vs. Hillary, a fraud and a phony, a manufactured candidate. It is a pocket-sized truism of left vs. right.

Hillary believes if she can manipulate the public, she’ll win. Not even the rabid democrats believe her anymore.

From PJ Media…

86% Say No to Hillary in MSNBC Poll

by Debra Heine, April 15, 2015 – 11:02 am

According to a new Rasmussen poll, nearly six in 10 voters believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the next president. But perception is not reality, as an MSNBC poll seems to indicate.

The poll, which appeared on the MSNBC website on Tuesday morning, shows that 86% of MSNBC readers who responded would not vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming presidential election. Only 13% responded in the affirmative and a mere 2% said “maybe.”

The poll, while not scientific, strongly suggests that progressives do not prefer to have a baggage-laden career politician as their party’s standard bearer in 2016.

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“Missouri is no longer a presidential bellwether state. The state’s voters haven’t sided with the national victor since 2004,” so says the St. Louis Public Radio. What they really mean is that Missouri hasn’t been an Obama rubber-stamp much to the chagrin and disappointment of the St Louis liberals.  In fact, Missouri is so out-of-step, according to them, that the state’s political consultants are being chosen to lead the campaigns of Cruz, Bush, and perhaps Scott Walker.

Missouri’s position — and importance — in 2016 presidential contest up in the air

By

First, one thing needs to be made clear: Missouri is no longer a presidential bellwether state. The state’s voters haven’t sided with the national victor since 2004.

As a result, as more candidates announce their 2016 presidential bids, many activists in both major parties predict Missouri won’t be a battleground state this time, either.

This means, as in 2012, Missouri voters won’t see many presidential TV ads and likely won’t see much of the candidates.

Under that scenario, Democrats believe it will be too costly, too risky and unnecessary to try to carry the state. And Republicans are confident they don’t need to spend money to keep Missouri in their presidential column.

But that doesn’t mean Missouri has no role to play in the presidential contest. “We will not see presidential candidates coming here for votes, but they will be coming here for some of the talent in our state and probably more importantly, to raise funds,” said Republican consultant James Harris.

In fact, such quests already are underway. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stopped by a couple months ago for a private money-raising event held at Hunter Engineering, the firm owned by former Ambassador Stephen Brauer and headquartered near Lambert Field.

…

And several major Republican players in the state already have lined up behind GOP contenders:

  • Kansas City-based consultant Jeff Roe has been assisting GOP hopeful Ted Cruz for months and recently was named his campaign manager;
  • Gregg Keller, a St. Louis-based consultant, is a senior adviser for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., also is on board with Walker, providing policy advice. Keller and Talent previously had been active in Mitt Romney’s presidential bids.
  • Prominent St. Louis lawyer Jack Oliver, former vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, has been volunteering in the state and nationally on behalf of Jeb Bush. Oliver earlier had been the campaign finance chairman for former President George W. Bush.
  • Harris, based in Jefferson City, isn’t officially aligned with any of the 2016 candidates, although he personally backs Jeb Bush. He served as a contribution “bundler’’ for Republican nominees John McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012.

Oliver, by the way, disagrees with those pundits who write off Missouri as a 2016 battleground state.  “Missouri is a very important state, and will be in the primary and in the general election,” he said.

Some fellow Republicans who privately agree with him point to the state’s top Missouri Democratic consultant, who long has been a national player:  veteran consultant/money-raiser Joyce Aboussie.

Based in St. Louis, Aboussie was the national political director for U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D- St. Louis, for more than a decade. She has supported and assisted Hillary Rodham Clinton for years.

The column continues on the website, you can read all if it here. Missouri’s liberals may think Missouri has nothing much to be noticed. Others, on the national political scene, believe otherwise.

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Taxes…and more taxes.

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One way or another, Spring is tax time. This year could be like no other in our country’s history. More taxes will become effective—more taxes to be paid, than at any other time since George Washington was inaugurated.

You won’t hear about it from the MSM, nor from any mainstream news outlet. You won’t know the extent of these taxes until it comes time for them to be paid. And, pay you will.

The first item is, unsurprisingly, Obamacare. This is the first time you will pay your Obamacare tax. If you don’t have health care, you will have to pay a penalty. If you do have health care, your employer will have to pay a tax to support Obamacare. If you’re self-employed, your tax will be the increased cost of individual healthcare. Regardless of your circumstances, you will pay more.

Obamacare penalty may come as shock at tax time

By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times – Sunday, January 18, 2015

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2015/01/19/obama_s877x585.jpg?321c9d70daf99fc888c0b24f70eed91a13ac78bc

In a scene reminiscent of Pontius Pilate washing his hands after sentencing Jesus, President Barack Obama wipes his face with a cloth handed to him by White House Butler Von Everett in the Blue Room of the White House following an event with business leaders in the East Room, Jan. 28, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting.

The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household income as their penalty.

TurboTax, an online tax service, estimated that the average penalty for lacking health insurance in 2014 will be $301.

“People would hear the $95, quit listening, and make an assumption that that was what their penalty was going to be,” said Chuck Lovelace, vice president of affordable care for Liberty Tax Service. “I think that a lot of people will be surprised when they get in there and find out that their penalty is [based] on their household income.”

The penalty is designed to prod Americans to buy insurance and the penalty for not having it is scheduled to rise considerably: to a $325 minimum or 2 percent of income in 2015, and to a $695 minimum or 2.5 percent of income in 2016. (The column continues on to a 2nd page at the Washington Times website.)

It may not have been in the forefront of everyone’s mind about Obamacare taxes (note: that’s plural,) we did know they were coming. Other taxes, or tax proposals are more recent.

With the dropping price of gasoline at the pump, a by-product of the Oil War between the US and OPEC, the Congress is considering raising the gas tax for the first time since 1993. The belief in Washington is that people will have more disposable income due to the lowering cost of gas at the pump so they can afford to pay a higher tax.

Corker calls for federal gas tax hike

Mary Troyan, Tennessean Washington Bureau 4:04 p.m. CST January 11, 2015

WASHINGTON – Low gas prices have rekindled talk on Capitol Hill about raising the federal gas tax to eliminate huge annual deficits in the federal Highway Trust Fund that pays for road and bridge work around the country.

While some top Republicans remain adamant a tax hike is not the answer, there are signs that the idea, including one from Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, is at least getting a fresh look.

Corker and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have proposed raising the federal gas tax by 12 cents over two years and indexing it to inflation. To make the concept more palatable to fiscal conservatives, the measure would lower other taxes.

The 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1993. As vehicles have become more efficient, the revenue generated by the tax has dropped. Current stopgap funding for the Highway Trust Fund expires in May, and transportation officials in Tennessee and other states are holding back projects until uncertainty about the federal money is addressed.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said this week a gas tax increase could not be ruled out. Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, agreed. (Read more at the website.)

The feds aren’t the only ones eying consumers’ wallets, a number of states are covetously thinking the same as the feds. As usual, the excuse is the crumbling transportation infrastructure and dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The root cause isn’t insufficient taxes, the root cause is that, like the Social Security Trust Fund, the Feds have been robbing the Highway Trust fund to pay for more welfare.

The highway crumbling infrastructure isn’t due to a lack of taxes, it’s due to redirecting the money to other non-transportation projects. Cut those other projects, stop robbing the trust funds, and there would be plenty of funding to rebuild the highways and bridges.

The same reasoning applies to the states.

States look at hiking gas tax as fuel prices plunge

Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY 12:09 p.m. EST January 17, 2015

With gas prices dipping to their lowest level in years, lawmakers in state capitals throughout the USA are increasingly open to the idea of raising fuel taxes to help rebuild crumbling roadways and bridges.

The movement at the state level comes as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week that he’s doubtful that there will be enough backing for a bi-partisan push to raise the federal gas tax, which has stood at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.

The Obama administration has also declined to endorse raising the federal gas tax to finance road funding, but says it will take a look at anything Congress comes up with.

State legislators and governors, however, aren’t waiting for Washington.

Republican leaders who typically find talk of raising taxes a non-starter are making the issue a priority in 2015, even though polling consistently has shown broad opposition among Americans to fuel tax hikes.

“The states have shown that they are more likely to act on the gas tax than the federal government is,” said Carl Davis, a senior policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group in Washington. “The states have to balance their budgets. If they see, their roads are in bad shape or their bridges are literally falling down—in some cases—they need to come up with a way to pay to improve that. And there’s a limited number of things you can do at the state level.” (Read more here.)

The column notes that a number of states have raised gas taxes in recent years. I also note that most of those states are in the liberal north-east, the area commonly known as the rust belt for good reason—tax flight by businesses.

The final example of taxes for this post comes from Missouri. At least one bill has been filed to convert the state to the ‘Fair Tax.’ I’m of two minds on this. I don’t like consumption taxes, sales taxes. Sales taxes have many unintended consequences, the least of which is to drive consumers to buy large ticket items out-of-state where taxes may be lower. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind seeing Missouri’s Department of Revenue taken down a very large peg.

A bill has been filed for the 2015 Missouri session that would reduce Missouri’s income tax by 25% per year until it is eliminated. It also proposes an increase of the current 4% sales tax to 7% sales tax on “retail sales of new tangible personal property and taxable services.” It idea is that the sales tax would be gradually increased as the income tax is decreased to make the scheme, “revenue neutral.” Frankly, I’ve never seen a bill work as it was envisioned. Something always goes wrong. It is the unintended consequences that make our lives harder and they are never fully corrected.

Be that as it may, we must be eternally vigilant on taxes. I’ve yet to meet a tax I liked. Every tax I’ve ever seen failed to meet its original purpose.

 

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