Congressmen Say It Will Make the State Billions

Texas approves Text, Data and Electronic Message Tax.

Congressmen say it will make the state billions. BY BILL MILLER [email protected]

Oct. 5, 2013-- OMG, they are taxing our texts! The latest news from Sen. Ted Cruz, the strongest proponent of Senate Bill 2402, is that the proposed law will contain provisions to make sure that the state does not run out of money.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The State of Texas has a budget shortfall of over 90 billion dollars. Sen. John Cornyn recently proposed this tax last week and it was passed 254-32. The state says this tax will take place the first week of January, 2014. The tax will be at $.05 for each text. The average adult is sending over 300 texts a month while the average teenager sends 1200 a month. The average family of 4 will pay $150 dollars a month in text taxes.

On top of that, each individual data plan will face a $7 tax per GB used in data each month. With the average family of 5 using 2.5 GB per month, that will bring in an expected $17 per family and has the potential to make the state billions.

Given that this tax will hit the pocketbooks of college-age students the most, along with the fact that such students make up a small minority of the voting population, don't be surprised if the" text tax" passes.

"OMG," ""That's CRAP," you say? If our founding fathers communicated in lame acronyms too, they'd probably be saying the same thing. Sure, taxes pay for all sorts of good ideas: law enforcement, firemen, schools, and youth programs.

Blah Blah Blah, you kids won’t read past this as you go crazy about this tax. I’m just going to write jibberish. But let's never forget what the 18th century American statesman and jurist John Marshall once said of taxes, "An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

If the tax proposal were to pass, the cities utility tax would go from 7.5 percent to 7 percent.

"The city is calling the proposed ordinance the 'Utility Use Tax Reduction and Fairness Measure for Communications Services,'" wrote Terri Hardy of the Sacramento Bee.

But don't let this fool you. While the tax ratio is smaller, many of our new communication technologies, which are currently not being taxed, will now be fair game for the government to start taxing.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association called the city's proposal "baloney" and also said, "They're packaging it as a tax reduction and it's notâ€¦ They're not only trying to hoodwink voters to ratify a tax on cell phones, but they're adding insult to injury by extending it to all current and future technologies."

So not only will we see more of our new utilities being taxed, but the city will also be given the right to tax whatever new communications we start using.

What the people of Sacramento need is a real solution.

Before our city passes its budget, the city council and mayor need the vision and math skills to see if we have the money to pay for all their government programs and services.

We need leaders, not politicians, that will have the spine to stand up and say, "we can't keep paying for all this" regardless of the political ramifications.

We need leadership that has the heart to cut spending even if it means they're going to miss out on some votes in their districts next election.

And we also need leaders that are creative enough to find a solution to a budget shortfall without raising taxes.

This cycle of passing an unreasonable budget and then making up for it with tax payer money has to stop.

Until then, there will be an infinite number of new tax measures on our ballots.

Just to recap, the United States of America: ten trillion dollars in debt.

The state of California: fifteen billion dollars in debt. The city of Sacramento being on the verge of so much debt it has to tax text messages? Priceless.