Consumer/Taxpayer Accountability
The consumer is the taxpayer and the taxpayer is the largest funding source and consumer
of local, state and federal government programs and policies.� The consumer and the taxpayer
are one in the same.� A rose by any other name still smells the same.
The consumer has always been on the alert for high costs and
rip-offs in the private commercial sector.� Now we need the consumer to
demand more accountability from the governments that he or she pays
taxes to support.� Some government programs have more than 70 percent
administration costs.� A CEO who ran a business this way would be fired
on the spot.
A good example is that the consumer is outraged with the oil industry
when the price of gasoline goes up at the pump.� This increase cuts
into the consumers' budgets and the budgets of small businesses.� But
at the same time we never hear the consumer/taxpayer express outrage at
the gasoline taxes that continue to climb with the industries' price
increases.
In California where drivers are paying about 18-cents per gallon in
taxes the cities then slaps a sales tax on top of the state and federal
taxes so that motorist are paying tax on tax.� There is a proposal to
raise the state gasoline tax by 10 cents a gallon, that would make it
almost 30-cents a gallon tax in California, and then a 7 to 8 percent
sales tax on the new tax.
As a consumer/taxpayer have you ever wondered why there are no workers
or just one or two workers each day on highway projects.� Why don't
they finish them?� We know when the contractors are paid almost double
they can finish them is just months not years.�� As a consumer/taxpayer
we should demand that they work on the highway projects or we will cut
off the government funding.� These projects go on for years and traffic
continues to be congested and the consumer/taxpayer loses hours of
their life in their vehicles.
Consumer/taxpayers should make it clear to their politicians that�
governments don't make any money, it all comes from the
consumer/taxpayer and we want more accountability.
We must also let our elected politicians know that consumer/taxpayers
are not dumb, we know they have traded in the hated words HIGHER TAXES
for new words, HIGHER FEES. A tax and a fee are the same animal and
they are both on the consumer/taxpayers termination list.� Politicians
get your acts together or we will fire you at the voting booth.� As the
Donald says "YOU'RE FIRED!� Your vote can do it.
File Mar. 2004 |
