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Just got my excise tax bill. $0.03 per pound.

??? Even in crazy CA we don't have that. I pay higher DMV fee's due to GVW but what exactly is an excise tax? What will they think of next? You would think cutting spending, but that seems' to be a rather large blind spot that all politicians are afflicted with.

We have excise tax in Indiana too but my whole cost for antique plates for the year was only $25.00 and the tax is deductable on my taxes.

TAXES, What tax will they think of next? Oh I have a strong feeling Obhama's crew has a few more tricks up their sleeve on how to squeeze a buck out of us yet. Have you paid attention to all the new taxes that will come with this health care mess they are trying to cram down your throat? UNBELIEVABLE!! It will affect EVERY American in a HUGE way.

Off topic slightly, but it came to mind when someone mentioned taxes.

Taxachusetts has been at it for ever. Excise tax is a specific tax on your vehicle, per $100 of value. Minimum tax is $5.00. Don't be fooled - states that "don't have" an excise tax are paying it too, it's just rolled into your property tax, whether you have 1 vehicle or 10.

As for new taxes, it seems to me to just be reclassification. Look, we pay for the roads, police, fire, schools, government kickbacks, gold toilet seats, whatever, one way or another. Whether it is through an "above the boards" tax, or getting reamed some other way, it comes out of the peoples' pockets.

Yes, I'd like to see some trimming done to everything overadministrated, but it always seems to be the business end that gets the axe. Case in point - our school district was just given the heads up from the state that we have to cut over $1.2 million from our budget for next year. To put things into perspective, the regional HS at which I teach has about 650 students - small district. You think that the powers that be will reorganize the way the system is administrated? I doubt it. It's my colleagues that will get the axe. It is either that or (and) raising taxes, unless someone comes up with another revenue stream. I'm sure Charles can tell how difficult it is to find anyone with good metalworking skills, yet those are precisely the programs that go first. Rats - I got ranting again, didn't I? Sorry. I'll stop now.

As for my truck, the new-to-me block has been pressure tested & will soon get rebored +0.060. How exciting! Last week, we got at least 3 feet of snow (scattered throughout the week). So sad to see her sitting there with no engine. Fortunately, the neighbors haven't (yet) noticed that she has not moved in weeks.

N1VSM wrote: I'm sure Charles can tell how difficult it is to find anyone with good metalworking skills, yet those are precisely the programs that go first.

I know where you're coming from on the school funding situation.

In my equally small school district, the first to go was the art program, followed shortly thereafter by band and chorus. Driver's Ed went a couple of years later. Did they cut back on football or basketball? Heck no! The vocational ed programs (shop & ag) are safe for the time being 'cuz they are subsidized through the state department of labor.

I think that they should have a Air Tax. A tax on the amount of air a person breaths in everyday. After all it is not fair that a person who is 300 pounds uses more air everyday that a person who is 200 pounds. What do you guys think?

Carmen

Why nobody complains about the expenses of the deployment in Irak and Afghanistan? That's where the gross of your tax dollars go and the main reason of your budget red figures.
I don't understand you guys, you complain about the taxes you pay, and how the money is thrown away in a health care plan, but the money spent in your invasion efforts is OK with you.

Sorry about my comment, I know you are mostly republicans in this forum it's not my intention to hurt anybody's feelings, but I just don't understand.

I left the other forum because once people got off topic, it just got ugly. Let's not let the same thing happen here.
People are, of course, entitled to their opinion and facts are, unfortunately, easy to obfuscate. It seems silly to point fingers at one party or the other when both have done their share to get the rest of us into the mess we're in now.

Why nobody complains about the expenses of the deployment in Irak and Afghanistan? That's where the gross of your tax dollars go and the main reason of your budget red figures.
I don't understand you guys, you complain about the taxes you pay, and how the money is thrown away in a health care plan, but the money spent in your invasion efforts is OK with you.

Do the arithmetic again and include the bank and industry bailout funds which actually dwarf the military budget.

I find your use of the term (Invasion) to indicate you feel that the suppression of terrorism is not justified even with the events of 9/11. Are you actually a US citizen?

Juan wrote:Why nobody complains about the expenses of the deployment in Irak and Afghanistan? That's where the gross of your tax dollars go and the main reason of your budget red figures.
I don't understand you guys, you complain about the taxes you pay, and how the money is thrown away in a health care plan, but the money spent in your invasion efforts is OK with you.

Sorry about my comment, I know you are mostly republicans in this forum it's not my intention to hurt anybody's feelings, but I just don't understand.

Doesn't matter about party afilliation, that isn't the point. I really don't see your comments as legit since you are not from the US. I don't know what is going on in Argentina with politics to any degree of accuracy, so I would not comment on policies pending there. I do know a lot about what we are facing here in the US unless drastic changes come on the scene in the near future. I'm in hopes all parties could open their eyes to the inevitible, but at the same time wonder if we've already gone too far for that to happen.

We too have been hit with vital programs cut from local schools. All the vocational programs are gone from our local high school. My daughter, age 16 is faced with driving 20 miles to a school next year to get the classes she wants, that is if she can get accepted into the program at that school, remains to be seen. No child left behind was President Bush's pet program. Maybe it worked as planned in some areas of the US, however in our neck of the woods, it was and remains a total joke.

Guess I better get back on topic, I'm sure we all see issues and wonder.

Carmen wrote:I think that they should have a Air Tax. A tax on the amount of air a person breaths in everyday. After all it is not fair that a person who is 300 pounds uses more air everyday that a person who is 200 pounds. What do you guys think?

Carmen

This tax should apply to skinny athletic people. We of the "robust" pedigree use far less air than these mouth breathers.... They are also a burden to the health system with thier "tennis elbow" and "joggers knee's". No self respecting 300 pounder would ever be caught with these ailments...

As for multiple taxes - I'm Canadian, and thus live in the 2nd highest taxed country in the world; and yet we somehow manage to prosper and flourish in a country that is geographically larger than the US, but paid for by 90% less population. I don't know how or why it works, but it does... By comparison, ya'll pay alot less than we do. For many, and outward glance does a wonderful job of reminding people just how good it is at home... Here is an example: the price of gas. We've been paying almost $4.50 a gallon for most of the last decade. It was over $5.00 a gallon two years ago. The sad part is, its our oil. The US imports more oil from Canada, than anywhere else in the world, and you guys get to buy it cheaper than we do. The current price is $4.90 a gallon Cdn. (about $1.06 per litre where I am). Add 5% for difference on the dollar between us and we are currently paying about $5.15 US per gallon.
Shell that out of pocket everyday, or more, and some petty excise tax becomes pretty trivial... Welcome to my world.

The figure-heads of public office are not the problem - we put them there in our respective countries via democratic vote. We do not however choose the governmental middle managment that sets and enforces the policy's of day to day government operation. The legislature might pass a bill, but its up to these folks to make it work, and they have alot of unseen influence and power. If these positions rotated in and out as often as our elected representatives do, then perhaps we'd get better service from our respective governements.

As for schooling - at least your districts are just limiting funding. Our school district has been forced to reduce thier operating bugets by millions over the last 5 years or so, and has closed over 30 schools. Its a nightmare. They think nothing of putting an 6 year old child on a 90min. bus ride one way, just to save a penny or two. Families are being forced to move from rural environments to urban settings just so thier kids can go to school. Its wrong. Cuts are being made to all the programs that made students not only enjoy school, but made them more intelligent. These cookie cutter based programs do encourage creative thinking, just repitition of useless rhetoric and out dated diatribe. A public education isn't what it used to be. Public education used to have the needs of the students first and formemost. Now its the needs of the budget first. And the powers that be wonder why the foreigners are getting a leg up in the business world?

Ranted a little longer than I wanted, but I was on a roll....

MSeriesRebuild wrote:Doesn't matter about party afilliation, that isn't the point. I really don't see your comments as legit since you are not from the US. I don't know what is going on in Argentina with politics to any degree of accuracy, so I would not comment on policies pending there. I do know a lot about what we are facing here in the US unless drastic changes come on the scene in the near future. I'm in hopes all parties could open their eyes to the inevitible, but at the same time wonder if we've already gone too far for that to happen.

We too have been hit with vital programs cut from local schools. All the vocational programs are gone from our local high school. My daughter, age 16 is faced with driving 20 miles to a school next year to get the classes she wants, that is if she can get accepted into the program at that school, remains to be seen. No child left behind was President Bush's pet program. Maybe it worked as planned in some areas of the US, however in our neck of the woods, it was and remains a total joke.

Guess I better get back on topic, I'm sure we all see issues and wonder.

Charles, I was not making comments of your policy, I was trying to ask something, not very clearly, reading it again now I have to agree. You've answered me what I wanted to know by answering Master Yota's post.
I think any budget cut in education or health care programs is TRAGIC. (with capital letters)
From what I read in many forums I take part, anytime there's a rant on taxes or government, it's followed by ironic comments about the way that taxpayers money is spent.
Recently it was Obama's health care program, Banks, GM and Chrysler bailouts, you name it. But it's never the cost of the military programs the subject of complain.
I'm not a democrat nor a republican, as you can imagine, but I've been reading this forum for years and more than two elections, and I remember in all the past political posts, that there was a vast majority of republican support. I'm not saying this is bad, but it's a fact, and I know that republicans are big supporters of the war effort.

The feeling that you know what you are facing unless some drastic changes comes, is not new to me. We had 4 economic meltdowns in my lifetime only. We had bailouts to private companies a souple of times, someother times not, wich usually meant a lot of people without jobs.
Lots of the symptoms your economy showed before the meltdown, and the actions taken, seemed familiar to me cause I've seen them in my Country.

This is the core of what I was trying to ask, Why is wrong the money spen in the industry bailout? How many jobs were saved? Or not? Or in a Health care program? Why not spending a little less in the war machine instead? I hardly read any complain on the war expenses, and that's what I don't understand.

Sorry if I didn't explain myself clear.

Cuz: I'm not saying anything with the word invasion. You deploy an army in a foreign country, no matter if you have righteous reasons or not, it's an invasion. Like it was the Crusades, D-day, Desert Storm etc.
My signature clearly express I'm not a US citizen, though I lost a cousin in 9/11.

Monkeymissile: Absolutely agree on not letting it get ugly. I'm trying to make myself clear (at least this time) that I'm not criticizing or being judgemental


AGAIN: If somebody's feelings were hurt by my comments, I apologize, truly.
Some people in the forum know me (internetecally at least) since 1996 and would agreed I've always been respectfull of other's beliefs.
I'm always in the quest of knowledge, I think that forums like this one are a great oportunity for the interchange between people of different cultures, If (and it's a big IF) it's based on respect.

Thanks guys for taking the time to read this lines and if you feel you can shed some light on this issue, please feel free to answer.
The contact with you is first hand knowledge with people feelings/thoughts not contaminated by any news service agenda.

Hello Juan,

I feel no need for you to offer any apology. The write to freedom of expression is what the majority of us on this web site went to war for over the many past years and wars. From your point of view the word invasion fits the current situation. I suppose all wars are an invasion for some one. I prefer to look on the Afghanistan issue as a preventative measure of locally approved occupation and the use of these troops to help the local government rid their country of the same terrorist core that has already attacked us. Uniforms, international law, national borders and the Geneva convention have been thrown aside by these folks. It is a necessary expense but you are correct it should be given the same level of scrutiny that we give other tax dollar uses. I will say that there are both Republicans and Democrats supporting our current preemptive defense posture. The old adage is true still "The best defense is a good offense". If you take a close look at our history you will note that in many wars the Democrats led us in. So I think we can safely say both parties are capable of creating real problems.

As for the bailouts they are still in my opinion a veiled overpayment to the CEO's for their incompetency. The employment situation has NOT made a substantial recovery. The use of semantics and slanted statistics have been used to fool the average American into believing progress has occurred that has obviously not occurred.