The Role of Government in the Modern American Reality is an article written by Maria T Carrillo.
Personal Liberties seems to be the key idea in Maria’s blog and I agree that Americans are giving up their rights based off of fear. The mass media is eating every crises and every opportunity to grab their audience’s attention. The thoughts of fear are consistently repeated and instilled in our mind which in turn, gives our government an open door to do what they want. An example is The Patriot Act which was sign by congress shortly after September 11th, contained many discrepancies that threaten our personal freedoms. We gave the government power to gain access to our medical records, tax records, information about the books we buy and rent from libraries with out probable cause, allowing the government to break into our home to conduct searches without telling us, wire-tap our phone lines, and detain who they feel is a threat to national security. All of this seems to be ok by the public eye, because they fear that terrorist could be right next door and they could be subjected to a threat. The president enabled his executive powers gaining more control over our lives. Since these orders were issued during an emergency, good luck on seeing them return to the original state before they were placed.
Today’s financial crisis is another example of how our government is taking control of our lives. Again the mass media is eating up at this opportunity to gain viewers attention by providing them with the latest update of how the market it doing. The public is in fear of what they call “the great depression” part 2. The government now owns several large banks, auto industries, insurance companies and more. Isn’t it the government who lessen the restriction on banks lending procedures, allowing them to lend as much as they wanted to who ever they wanted, causing this recession to occur in the first place?
Our freedoms are being taken away, one day at a time, regardless of how you may see or what ever the government may call it. Our freedom is on a thin line. Controls are in place to protect you and the future generation, but the nation fails to realize that we are capable of taking care of ourselves and our families when crisis do arise. If we rely on the government as they want us to, then we will be subjected to new laws that will insure the governments control and order. This can be done by the discretionary power the president has when he feels there is a national emergency. Are we willing to watch our freedom disappear? Will we remain in the illusion that our government will protect us? I believe our national government has too much power right now which our founding fathers tried to prevent when they ratified the Articles of Confederation to our National Constitution. I think it is time that people need to voice their opinion and force our national government to change. A great start would be to write to your congressman. Let freedom rein!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Lets Increase the Gas Tax
As our economy is deep within a recession, with millions of people jobless, our government is wondering how they are going to pay for the ongoing projects and our countries enormous debt. Many ideals have been proposed over the course of a year, but the one I would like to focus on is “The Gas Tax.” The United States Department of Transportation has proposed a mileage gas tax which many find it to be crossing the line of our liberty and personal freedoms. Our national government wants more tax payer’s money. My thoughts are that they evaluate their yearly pay raise and cycle that income elsewhere.
In general, the gas tax is revenue for the Transportation Department to continue to make improvements on highways and roads to accommodate a growing population. According to the Transportation Department, at the end of the fiscal year 2009, our country will be lacking billions of dollars for those projects. Currently, state gasoline tax is anywhere between 8 cent/gallon to 38 cent/gallon. This does not include the 18.4 cent/gallon tax that the federal government has imposed before state taxes. For example, Texas gas tax is 20 cent/gallon plus the federal gas tax of 18.4 cent/gallon equals 38.4 cent/gallon of gas. If all 519,576 valid driver license holders owed one car and fills up with 1 gallon of gasoline, it would be $197,438.88 total revenue for 1 gallon of gas (state receives $103,915.2 and federal receives $95,601.984); based off of 2008 Valid Licensed Drivers Data. Now, if you can just imagine that all licensed drivers and commercial licensed drivers all filled up their vehicles on one given day of the week, we would be talking about $3 billion per year, according to Texas Net Revenue by Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. If this data doesn’t blow your mind, than I seriously think we have a problem. Each state collects a gas tax as well as the federal government, explicitly for Transportation. Our government is collecting more than enough money for transportation and recently the Department of Transportation received $26 billion from the stimulus package.
The Transportation Department is proposing a GPS tracking device to tally up the number of miles a vehicle is driven and charging that driver a set price per mile. That sounds real great right? Think again! We are talking about a GPS tracking device that is tracking your every move. If you have any knowledge of the bible, this would be called “the mark of the beast;” 666. The government is gaining too much control over us and our liberties are slowly being taken away. Beyond the literary aspect, having to pay per mile doesn’t sound like a good idea since they are proposing the idea to increase more revenue. If you haven’t looked at your cell phone bill lately, look closely, there’s a government tax for accessing the interstate.
Since the mileage gas tax will take nearly 10 years to come up with a full scale innovation release plan, to place a GPS system in every vehicle tracking how many miles you drive, congress is proposing a 5 year federal gas tax increase. The plan is to increase federal gas tax 5 to 8 cents a year until it reaches 40 cents a gallon. That means that your grocery bill will increase along with this tax. So we are all going to be hurting.
Transportation taxes can be subdued if congress would stop giving themselves a pay raise every term. Since congress is being paid by our tax dollars and our economy is in recession, how about they cut their pay, not just freeze their pay until 2010? That extra money can be rerouted back into the economy and to the Department of Transportation, if they truly do need it. What happened to the ideal of “for the greater common good?” Right now it seems there is some wasteful spending going on and our check and balance system isn’t keeping the checks and balances even.
2008 Valid Licensed Drivers Data
Texas Net Revenue by Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
House Freezes Pay Raise for 2010
2004 Congress Pay Raise
Transportation Chief Considers Taxing Miles Driven
Tax Rates by State
In general, the gas tax is revenue for the Transportation Department to continue to make improvements on highways and roads to accommodate a growing population. According to the Transportation Department, at the end of the fiscal year 2009, our country will be lacking billions of dollars for those projects. Currently, state gasoline tax is anywhere between 8 cent/gallon to 38 cent/gallon. This does not include the 18.4 cent/gallon tax that the federal government has imposed before state taxes. For example, Texas gas tax is 20 cent/gallon plus the federal gas tax of 18.4 cent/gallon equals 38.4 cent/gallon of gas. If all 519,576 valid driver license holders owed one car and fills up with 1 gallon of gasoline, it would be $197,438.88 total revenue for 1 gallon of gas (state receives $103,915.2 and federal receives $95,601.984); based off of 2008 Valid Licensed Drivers Data. Now, if you can just imagine that all licensed drivers and commercial licensed drivers all filled up their vehicles on one given day of the week, we would be talking about $3 billion per year, according to Texas Net Revenue by Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. If this data doesn’t blow your mind, than I seriously think we have a problem. Each state collects a gas tax as well as the federal government, explicitly for Transportation. Our government is collecting more than enough money for transportation and recently the Department of Transportation received $26 billion from the stimulus package.
The Transportation Department is proposing a GPS tracking device to tally up the number of miles a vehicle is driven and charging that driver a set price per mile. That sounds real great right? Think again! We are talking about a GPS tracking device that is tracking your every move. If you have any knowledge of the bible, this would be called “the mark of the beast;” 666. The government is gaining too much control over us and our liberties are slowly being taken away. Beyond the literary aspect, having to pay per mile doesn’t sound like a good idea since they are proposing the idea to increase more revenue. If you haven’t looked at your cell phone bill lately, look closely, there’s a government tax for accessing the interstate.
Since the mileage gas tax will take nearly 10 years to come up with a full scale innovation release plan, to place a GPS system in every vehicle tracking how many miles you drive, congress is proposing a 5 year federal gas tax increase. The plan is to increase federal gas tax 5 to 8 cents a year until it reaches 40 cents a gallon. That means that your grocery bill will increase along with this tax. So we are all going to be hurting.
Transportation taxes can be subdued if congress would stop giving themselves a pay raise every term. Since congress is being paid by our tax dollars and our economy is in recession, how about they cut their pay, not just freeze their pay until 2010? That extra money can be rerouted back into the economy and to the Department of Transportation, if they truly do need it. What happened to the ideal of “for the greater common good?” Right now it seems there is some wasteful spending going on and our check and balance system isn’t keeping the checks and balances even.
2008 Valid Licensed Drivers Data
Texas Net Revenue by Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
House Freezes Pay Raise for 2010
2004 Congress Pay Raise
Transportation Chief Considers Taxing Miles Driven
Tax Rates by State
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