A Tax Increase Is still A Tax Increase, No Matter What you call It

 DECEIVING THE PUBLIC NO MATTER WHAT YOU CALL IT A TAX INCREASE IS STILL A TAX INCREASE

The Watchman

Is it us or has everyone else also noticed that politicians are a rare breed. They feel a certain amount of power over the people that they are supposed to work for yet are perfectly willing to get up in front of those same people and tell them a bald faced lie. Perhaps the saddest part of it all is people honestly believe it. Politicians believe that if they can't dazzle you with their brilliance they can always baffle you with their bull crap. We see it in full display of all it gaudy glory during this session of the legislature.

In 2006 the federal government passed the Real I.D. Act. When they did so, they in effect established a National I.D. card. They took advantage of the left coast loons and the east coast power players to increase the steps towards total control of the American populace. In 2007 Oklahoma passed a law that said we would not comply with the Real I.D. Act. Even though that law was passed, the Department of Public Safety used tax payer's dollars to purchase and place in tag agencies the necessary camera's to take a picture of the quality necessary for facial recognition. We know of only one brave individual in the state who fought this and won.

Then we found this article Oklahoma now has Real ID law, but don't get in line yet for new driver's license - Tulsa World: Homepagelatest. Now we all knew this was going to happen. The Governor and a majority of the Senate have been pushing for it over the last couple of years. There have even been a few Representatives trying to get it passed. Well it passed because the state needed the money. In the new language of the Tax Increase, a Fee has taken on a new meaning. They say you can still get the non-compliant Driver's License, but that's going to be a logistical nightmare for them. If you want the compliant license it's going to cost you an extra five ($5.00) dollars. Since they already have the cameras in the facilities, they'll have a photo of you that is capable of being used for facial recognition anyway. It's a tax or in this case a fee scam. This is just one of the words that have a new meaning in a tax increase.

The next article of interest we found was this  We encourage all of you to open this link and read the article. You can really see how many different ways they can describe tax increases. We'll show you a few here.

BOLD REFORMS FOR RECURRING REVENUES. The source is the Governor's budget proposal.

BROADEN THE TAX BASE. This comes from former State Senator Owen Laughlin's A Guide to Liberal Terms for the Legislative Session. This was a handout he used while on the campaign trail in 2010 for the office of the State Treasurer. The definition of this is "People paying existing taxes are fed up, so we need to find new things to tax for the first time in history." Fits the Fallin sales tax hike perfectly.

INVEST/INVESTMENT This one comes from House Appropriations and Budget Chair Leslie Osborn in an article from The Oklahoman: "Out of 101 people in the House, I've got 70 or 80 pragmatic members that will actually look at this and say it's time to invest (with new revenue)." Osborn, speaking on The Oklahoman's Political State podcast, referred to "pragmatic members" as those who might be willing to vote in favor of a tax increase. Does anyone besides the Muskogee Politico and us see a problem here? It's a simple problem. Invest or investing or investment usually implies using monies you already have. Representative Osborn you just made yourself the subject of my next article.

Now someone did try to be polite about raising your taxes by saying this. NEW RECURRING REVENUE. The source is a column by Scott Meacham, posted online by the Governor. Like we said, a much nicer way of saying "higher taxes."

What's important is that people being aware of the various terms that they are using to raise taxes on the working people of Oklahoma. There are other ways to raise the funds in this state however the state government just doesn't appear to be capable of doing what is necessary to get the job done.

At a time when the state is in a financial crisis these pack of less than wise men thought they were justified in making the tax credit for the oil and gas industry permanent. Why? Most Oklahoma citizens are hurting as well however they got their tax cut removed and placed back into the state coffers to help make up the $1.3 billion dollar shortfall last year. Already during this session they have grown the size of government. That just goes to prove that we have a desperate lack of leadership and intelligence running the state. Between the last two years the state has had a shortfall of over $2.1 billion dollars in its budget. Yet they found $50 million for the Native American Heritage Center and the Tulsa Pop Museum. They also came up $66,000.00 plus to cover a sex scanda. What they haven't done is cut enough of the tax credits to the companies that finance their campaigns. They give out in excess of $2 billion dollars a year in tax credits there.

There is another big problem the state faces that they refuse to tackle. We must ask who would want to relocate a business to Oklahoma when their employees would be caught in a maze of turnpikes that will soon have more mileage than any other state in the union. It's past time to do away with the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

In closing the best we can say is that us taxpayers in Oklahoma are the unwilling, led by the unqualified to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little for so long that we are now qualified to do practically anything with nothing.