One of the best ways to get elected to office is by promising to cut taxes. It’s an effective trick many politicians use while campaigning, but rarely ever results in any tax saving for the average citizen like you and me. I agree that we’re over taxed, but it’s not the income taxes we pay, but the myriad "hidden" taxes that enable elected officials to dig deep into our pockets.

You stay in a hotel at, say, $100 a night but, when you go to check out, the price is really $130 per night, the difference being all those room taxes municipalities charge that no one tells you about when you book the room.
 
There’s actually three taxes on tire purchases: sales taxes, excise taxes, and that tire disposal fee which, in effect, is another tax. We pay multiple taxes on phone bills, gasoline purchases, watches and jewelry. We’re even slapped with heavy estate taxes when we die. This is money that has already been taxed, but the government still takes another bite out of the apple.

Besides flat-out lying to us about the taxes they’re going to cut, they also want us to believe that government is inherently evil and most government programs and services should be done away with.

Take the recent wildfires that continue to sweep through Southern California. State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, who represents Ladera Ranch, and Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell issued statements blaming state fire officials for not providing enough air support during the early hours of the fire. But both of them fought bitterly to defeat Measure D, a ballot initiative a few years ago which would have given the firefighters the money they needed to pay for additional staff and equipment.

But one has to ask, where did they think the money was going to come from to add additional equipment and firefighters to ensure our safety when the wildfires come roaring through our neighborhoods as they did the past two weeks!

Politicians need to come clean and level with us about the taxes we pay. And we need major tax reform, like Ronald Reagan did to the federal income tax code by reducing the numerous tax brackets, indexing them to inflation, and eliminating many "sacred cow" deductions.

Here in California, Proposition 13 reduced real estate taxes to 1% of the property, although the politicians have figured a way around that with Mello-Roos and similar taxes. But when both those measures were put into effect, the politicians said the sky would come falling down . . . but it didn’t!

Our elected officials need to quit acting as if taxes are unnecessary and baiting people into voting for them on the promise of "no new taxes." There are services, such as keeping wildfires from burning our communities to the ground, that only the government can provide and they have to be paid for. In the same vein, federal officials have to balance the budget.

The current administration has run up a larger deficit in six years than all previous administrations combined, and we still have another two years to go. It is unconscionable to burden our grandchildren and their children’s children with debt that they run up to satisfy their runaway spending binges.

We have serious problems in this country that will take serious elected officials and a lot of public support and sacrifice to resolve. But all we hear is that Hillary’s too aggressive, Mitt’s not the right kind of Christian, Rudy is not as conservative as Fred, and John doesn’t support the troops.

We need to wake up! We’re being had! We need to start to elect people who will make a substantive difference in our lives, instead of reelecting termed-out career politicians who play musical chairs with each other to remain in office.

To quote my now-deceased father, a brilliant legislator who did make quantifiable differences in every American’s life, "We get the government we deserve!"

                                               Jim Schmitt, Editor and Publisher