Shooting and Taxes

The since yesterday the new has been rightly dominated by Virginia Tech massacre and right for so. I would hope that both politicians and media personality would let some time bases before they starting using this incident to push their agendas. Give the families time to grieve in private and give time for all of the information to get out to the public before we make any knee jerk reactions. One of the beauties of the colleges and universities in the United States are how open they are, it makes for easier free flow of communication and integration of the university and student body into the surrounding community. Massacres like these are incredible rare and the odds of any person being killed by one is very small, you the reader probably have a higher chance of being killed by a car slamming into your house, office or apartment while reading this. It would be a shame if we damage our communities by fencing off and putting metal detectors and visible armed guard around campuses.

Today is tax day and most everyone hated the income tax because in part it is a visible tax, everyone can see it and know exactly how much they are paying to the government. The Gross Receipts Tax on the other hand is an invisible tax because the cost of the tax become incorporated in the price of goods and services sold, so unless the public does some research they do not know how much paying to the government. That is probably one of the reason that the Governor wants a Gross Receipts Tax, because that way he can claim that he is not taxing the public and blame any price increases on greedy businesses. Wednesday April 18 there is going to be a lobbying day in Springfield against the Gross Receipts tax, I would encourage everyone to attend.