On Taxation Without Representation and the Laffer Curve.

Now we are being asked to pay for the shortfalls of the California state budget. The Legislature of the State of California has passed more laws than they can afford to pay for. Rather than either having only those laws they can afford, or taxing them-selves sufficiently to pay for the benevolence that they wish their state to provide; they come instead to the President of the United states of America, hat in hand, asking that he, President Obama, take money from you and from me to pay for their expenditures.
This is unquestionably taxation without representation. I did not have any representation in funding sea otter habitats, or local community theatres. I should not be required to pay for them.
I just watched Craig T. Nelson say on the Glenn Beck show that he will not pay taxes any longer if we continue on the current path. I do not know the true wisdom of that statement, but the Atlas Shrugged answer of reducing my participation and contribution in the system may be a better answer. If my return for my hard work is an ever-reducing return, there is no incentive in my going to work and attempting to earn the government more money than the same work earns me. I am reaching the point of diminishing returns.
If this sounds familiar, it is the thesis of the Laffer Curve. Dr. Laffer's thesis is dismissed by television pundits and other advocates of big government who think that economic laws can be readily dismissed since the complexity of variables do not make absolute outcomes. But the thesis itself is so simple that one can readily ponder where the point of the demand side will infringe on the desire to work and hence reduce the impetus to get out of bed and even try. If the total taxation burden of federal, state, local, becomes to onerous it will alter behavior. But if the revenue drops off on excessive demand, one can make one of two deductions - That the purpose of the increased taxation is for some purpose other than the generation of revenue or that the tax collectors truly believe that people will work continue to work harder for decreased benefit for themselves.
Early Retirement sounds better every day.

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Taxes 2009

Tuesday, the Tax Foundation released its 2009 comparative report on US State Taxes:

Facts and Figures: How Does Your State Compare?

Download the Excel file and see how your state compares on a number of different categories.
For example, here in Georgia we have the third highest beer taxes (after Alaska and Alabama) in the nation, but we have the second lowest (after Alaska) gasoline taxes; while Wisconsin has the eighth highest gasoline taxes and second lowest (after Wyoming) beer taxes.

While I love my beer, I drink a lot less beer than I use gasoline.

In Memoriam -- Rockmart Seaboard Station

Rockmart Seaboard Station
Originally uploaded by luxomni

It would have made a nice rest stop and snackbar on the Silver Comet Trail. It sat in the middle of a wye where the tracks in front of it and behind it in this view have not been used in years. And the one behind me is seldom used. It would have kept the railroad motif of the trail where once the luxury train from Washington through the South ran.

I say "would have" because, alas, it is no more. Our governments tax the property of the railroad whether or not it is in use with no mercy. Instead of trying to conserve the past or encourage the future, we tax and tax again to sqeeze every last penny into our government coffers to buy votes with, or to enrich out public office holders. The environmentalists wring their hands at our energy use, but do not encourage our Government to provide incentive to re-establish private mass transit . Only inefficient, inconvenient and unserving government transit is to be encouraged.

So another quaint old station succumbs to the bulldozer, and we are that much more impoverished by it.