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Looking Out for Number 1

For the past three years StatesOnTheTake.Com has chronicled the ever-expanding collection of “Stealth Cartels” across this country.

These Stealth Cartels are comprised of Big Business and our elected state government officials — Comrades in Collusion if you will, who, covertly scratch one-another’s back for their mutual financial and political benefits.

Since the late 1990’s these Stealth Cartels have steadily multiplied in effectiveness to the point where they threaten the very free market society upon which our country was based.

Our site identified the mother of all Stealth Cartels in 2005, that being the “Master Settlement Agreement,”the “settlement” between 46 states and Big Tobacco, which occurred in the late 1990’s.
A “settlement” which was in reality a partnership.

StatesOnTheTake.com has based its grass roots political platform upon highlighting the various sweat-heart deals and Stealth Cartels between these Comrades of Collusion, which have over the past decade, far exceeded the realm of big tobacco, and continue to slant the economic playing field against the average Citizen Consumer.

Now a new variation has arisen in the Stealth Cartel model, one which is chilling brilliant in its simplicity. In this latest example, an state official has seen fit to discard the Comrade in the Collusion, and simply present his state government with its very own billion dollar Sweatheart Deal… all at the taxpayer’s expense.

The windfall gift in this unilateral collusion is the ludicrous idea of a gas tax. This tax and spend idea was proposed by a Republican, Neal St. Onge of Missouri.

In this time of economic downturn, to put it politely, Mr. St. Onge has proposed a gas tax increase of $0.4 per gallon over the next six years, claiming that the additional billions of dollars raised by the tax would go to infrastructure and road repair in Missouri.

Of course, as with the original Stealth Cartel - the MSA, Mr. St. Onge brings with his tax, promises of good deeds by the government which are to be undertaken at some time in the future, with its newfound billions, sucked out of Missouri’s Citizen Consumers.

A gas tax wont work. In any and every state such a tax would by definition, inequitably take a much bigger bite per capita out of the lower-to-middle class drivers’ paychecks than it would out of say…. that of a country-club well-to-do motorist, be he or she Republican or Democrat.

But a bad idea knows no political boundaries, and thankfully, neither does the logical counter-point. That’s why politicians from both sides of the isle in states across the country have been shooting down this sensles idea to fill state treasury coffers even more at the expense of the Citizen Consumer. Some states are even, rolling back planned or previously proposed and agreed-to gas tax increases.

Democrats and Republicans have forsaken the idea of foisting such an ill-advised additional tax burden upon their Citizen Consumers, and thankfully so.

This bipartisan action to override, defeat and veto the gas-tax idea further confirm’s the foundational belief of StatesOnTheTake; that right and wrong don’t exclusively reside in either the elephant’s tent or the donkey’s stable. A good idea that secures the free market and protects the pocket books of the Citizen Consumers across the country should be championed by everyone, both in elected office and on the road.

Take Back Your State

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 am by S. George Alfonso and is filed under Big Tobacco, State Government, Sweetheart Deals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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