Time to Sell your Suffolk Cell?

Suffolk County announced that they are addressing their $151 million sales tax revenue short fall by proposing a 30¢ monthly surcharge on cell phone usage.

Let us examine the logic behind this latest strategy by our elected officials who produce no product and are paid for their services out of the taxes that they levy upon the rest of us.

The voting citizens of the county, many of whom have lost their jobs or at least a good portion of their income are spending less money in order to cope with the economic downturn. This decrease in spending causes less sales tax to be collected by the retailers and therefore less tax money flowing into the county's coffers. Obviously the retailers are also hurting and in order to stay in business they lower prices hoping to generate more business.

The consumer may see these lower prices and come back to the stores thus helping the businesses and jump-starting the economy.

However the Suffolk County legislature cannot wait for the normal turn of capitalism and rather than lower their needs they must raise taxes somewhere. But no matter where they raise the taxes the money they will be taking will be coming from the same consumers who were just about to start spending again.

The unemployment in America is close to 9% now and people are hurting in every sector we examine except for two glaring exceptions. One exception is the group of CEOs at the top of businesses many of whom caused this economic disaster in the first place. We are looking to these recipients of our Billions in bailout funds to guide us back to prosperity.

The other exception is our lawmakers who are set for life and need no disposable income since everything they want is theirs for the appropriation. They have generally taken no cut in pay and in many cases have voted themselves raises. As I said earlier they produce no product. They are elected to make our lives better and in return they are afforded the luxury of freedom from want. Their healthcare and the healthcare of their families is taken care of by our taxes. Their pensions are set for life and their futures are as secure as can possibly be in this world.

In return for all this is it too much to ask that for just one year they stop the bullshit?
Is it too much to ask that for just one year they take a cut in pay equal to the average salary lost by the American worker?
Is it too much to ask that they be held accountable for the horrendous economy that has cost so many of us our retirement funds and futures?
When these pillars of the political scene point to their predecessors and place the blame there we must see through the lies.

If bailouts for the banks and certain large corporations are necessary then sobeit. But along with the bailouts must come reponsibility, clarity, and accountability.

You cannot fix the economy that is killing the lower and middle classes by bleeding the lower and middle classes out of whatever little money they have left! If this large group of voting Americans is not spending it is because they cannot afford to let one more dollar slip out of their pocket. This is not the time to take 30¢ a month to fill yours!