Platte City has placed proposed new taxes on the ballot for hotel stays and marijuana sales and it just screams everything that is wrong with the government in this country.
This issue is much bigger than Platte City. It’s a national problem and it is much of the reason for the explosion of government that an overwhelming percentage of the public say they disapprove, yet they continue to approve these taxes, often by their lack of appearance at the polls.
Taxes were intended and created to solve problems through cooperation. You got people dumping sewer in the street, then you agree to pass a tax, so people have sewers. You want people to get from the country to town, you pass a road tax to build a road to accomplish that task. Pretty simple concept. The problem with humans and simple is that we just can’t stand simple, and we have to complicate the uncomplicated, hence we have begun to tax things without a problem to solve and claim some sort of success in taxing the unnecessary.
I really don’t even blame the current officeholders that seek these taxes. It has become accepted, and nearly ignored in our society, to tax and spend, without concern for the big picture of taxation that ultimately lands hardest on the people that can least afford the avalanche of taxes.
Man, I’m starting to sound like my grandfather’s grandfather; I’m a cranky old fart about these taxes that I will never pay. I don’t buy weed because it makes me fatter and if I ever stay in a Platte City hotel or motel, things have taken a bad turn and taxes will be the least of my worries.
The weed doesn’t really make me fatter, but if I smoke/eat/inhale weed, I want some Doritos and then I eat the whole bag and that makes me fatter.
Does Platte City tax Doritos?
Accidently watched some local television news last week. That stuff needs a warning. It will make you dumber. The short segment I caught they read a bunch of warnings that they had been provided from state and local government. “Don’t leave your car unlocked,” “Don’t go on the roads that are slick,” “Don’t leave your car running to warm it up,” “Keep your TV turned to us all day for the next seven days as we tell you how bad this storm is,” “Get groceries stocked up,” was what I generally took from the newscast.
My Lord. We live in Missouri. It snows and we have ice storms. Calm down. Those 4 wheel drive vehicles that you drop the kids off at the school and drive them to meaningless ballgames across the country are really good in the snow. Just turn the dial on the dash. I’ve been alive for 58 years and never lacked for enough groceries to survive a Missouri storm and if you were waiting for a sport coated announcer to read you press releases from local government about basic life skills, we’ve got bigger problems than this storm.
Anyway, this week we’ve established that I’m grumpy and I’ll soon write my “let’s get this winter over with” column and we can move on to better times.
(Guy Speckman cannot be reached. He is anxiously awaiting his next life lesson from the TV news)
