Temporary Tax? Do You Really Believe That?

THE DOCTOR IS IN
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LAS VEGAS- Hello America, and how is the world treating you?

The big fad that is being adopted by many states is something called "A temporary tax." City, county and state governments are raising taxes for a specific period of time and they are telling the voter and taxpayer that the tax is only temporary and will be eliminated after a specific time frame. For example, Arizona just approved a 1 percent sales tax hike and promised to it will last only three years. Cities like Mobile, Alabama, and states like Kansas are also jumping on the bandwagon saying that these "temporary" taxes are to avoid layoffs of police and fireman. Other states and cities say it is for education. What a joke!

I suggest that these cities and states do layoff some of these police,firemen and teachers. They surely have no qualms about laying off other city, county and state employees. Why should a policeman, fireman or teacher get special treatment? They should be treated like any person working in the private sector. When a person gets laid off or fired from their job in the private sector the remaining employees have to pick up the slack and work a little harder. The same can and should apply to these public sector employees.

Many of these public sector workers are making three and four time the wages that someone in the private sector makes. That inequity should not be allowed to happen. In addition these public sector workers are building up tremendous retirement and pension packages that the average John and Jane Doe will never even be able to come close to, let alone enjoy.

Currently across the United States the public employee powerful unions browbeat the politician and lawmakers into large cost of living increases, bonuses, merit pay, free medical care, large and early retirements and super generous pensions and all of this is given to these public employees in exchange for their votes and backing of the lawmakers. The politicians are giving away the store to the public employees on the backs of the hard working people in the private sector.

There are a number of city, county and state governments that are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy only because of the outrageous demands made by these public employees but no lawmaker wants to layoff any of these people or take a chance of offending the public employee unions.

If you truly believe that these "temporary" taxes are going to be temporary, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. Remember the Federal Income tax? That income tax was put on the American peoples back in the 1930's and it too was supposed to be a "TEMPORARY TAX." Yeah, right!

I submit that these so-called temporary taxes and levies never go away. Once they are introduced and go into effect they are here to stay. My view is that once the lawmakers get a "temporary" tax and get their hands on that money they do not want to let it go and will use excuse after excuse to avoid letting the "temporary" tax expire.

Right now there are some states that imposed a "temporary" tax early on in the recession and some of those tax deadlines are about to expire. I would bet that Maryland, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina who enacted such a "temporary" tax fix will not allow the deadlines to expire. We'll see!

Do you really think that your state legislature and those greedy lawmakers will say: "Hey, we don't need any more money," so let's let that temporary tax expire? I'll take odds on that bet. Why? Because those public employee unions have a stranglehold on those legislators. The public employees want the little guy to continue to subsidize their over generous retirement and pay for their health plan for the rest of their lives.

I don't know about you but, yes- I also would like to retire early like these public sector workers. Personally, I don't want to work for a long time to pay for" others" to retire early and enjoy free health, fat pensions and obscene retirement benefits while I have to pay for my families health care and have no retirement or pension.


A "temporary" tax? I doubt that.-And, that's my opinion. People, draw your own conclusions. You decide.

Bradley W. Kuhns, Ph.D., O.M.D.
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Dr. Kuhns can be reached by e-mail at:
bradleykuhns@gmail.com