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Time, Taxes and Growth
by Ken Mahal, NSC President
Originally published on  March 8, 2007 - reprinted with permission

TIME GOES SO FAST I WONDER HOW MUCH TIME IS LEFT.
   Maybe you can tell me why every time I think about it the week has come around to Thursday again. And I say to Agnes as we walk in the back yard that here it is Thursday again and the week is gone. Maybe when you are our age and retired you don’t have as much on your mind when you don’t have an 8 to 5 job. Anyway speaking of how fast time flies by I will be clocking 86 come the 6th of April and must tell you that in my entire life I have never thought about this age thing and how much time do I have left before my maker calls. I did notice that last week and this week in the USA weekend RJ Sunday supplement they talk about this aging thing and by our life style they try to predict how long we will live. I have always had something much simpler to follow and that was how long my grandpa lived. I remember my grandpa on my mothers side always seemed to be sitting in his rocking chair in front of his big picture window looking out over the hills and fields around his farm. He was also always fishing with his cane pole with minnow bait catching big muskies in the Jump River. Maybe all of that was his longevity line but he also raised some 13 kids so he must have done something right. So when it comes to longevity I suggest you think of one of your relatives who lived the longest and think about that person as your ticket to longevity. By the way my grandpa lived to be a hundred and fished until his last three years. My mother also lived to be 90 and decided that was long enough and just quit eating, caught pneumonia and passed away at age ninety. My take is that if you don’t worry about everything that comes along, eat decently, exercise a little, don’t drink too much, get a few hours of sleep and a nap if needed then you don’t need to worry about your longevity because you have it made.

THERE IS A KILLER IN OUR LIFE WE CAN’T CONTROL CALLED TAXES.
   How well we live is one thing but there is a killer we can’t control called taxes. Our government at all levels will never stop taking our money from savings after working all of our adult life. Have you ever thought of that fact that we have allowed for a taxing system that continually takes our money and in no place do any of these taxing systems ever say “hey we have taken enough from these people”. Have you ever thought of the fact that having paid taxes for 60 years that is still not enough? Interesting and disgusting isn’t it that if we live to be one hundred years old our politicians and bureaucrats will still be taking our savings. I guess it will never stop until we reach the poverty level. In fact our government entities seem to make a special spot in their heart if they can call you as being at the poverty level. Remember under President Johnson we spent six or seven trillion on the Great Society that was all about the poverty level being something special in the United States of America. Back to taxes; tell me why you and I in our seventies and eighties should still be spending over half of our taxes on our public school system. Maybe if we didn’t have to pay so much some of these people would stop having so many children. My wife and I had two and felt that was what we could raise well and educate well. We did that, we felt that was our responsibility and we paid for it through sixteen and eighteen years of schooling not asking the government for any hand outs. I know not every one could do that but I don’t like what we see today in the public schools.

GROWTH ISN’T PAYING FOR GROWTH SO LET’S STOP GROWTH.
   It should be recognized by now that the way Clark County Commissioners are handling things that growth sure isn’t paying for growth and in fact never has. All of these commissioners have done is screwed up just about everything they are responsible for so isn’t it time we stop growth cold in its tracks and MAKE GROWTH PAY FOR GROWTH. I am sick and tired of day in and day out all we hear about is how badly the CCC are screwing up from the get go. Now they need billions for more highways and the legislature is being ask to come up with some way to stick other taxes on our back to pay for the billions needed for the new highway system, then we are going to be ask for billions more to build more new schools as well as about five billion more for the Las Vegas Water Authority to go north wreck their water table and to build a pipe to run treated sewage around Hoover Dam forgetting the fact that 300,000 acre feet of contaminated storm water runoff will still go down the Las Vegas Wash and continue to contaminate the water in the intake area. These costs will never stop and every estimate they come up with will be way under the real cost and we will be expected to pay for the over run anyway. It would be something else if the CCC were bringing real talent for real high paying jobs here not as is happening now millions of poor underachieving youngsters who will do what their parents do work for minimum wage because we do not have an economy that demands high achievers in industry like working for Fortune Five Hundred corporations. Aren’t we building an economy not to dissimilar to Cuba before Castro and look at what happened there? As for more money for new highways let Mr. money spender CCC Bruce Woodbury get behind taxing all earthmoving equipment, diesel trucks, all construction trailers, and trailer type towed equipment in the construction industry that has been using our roads for twenty five years and paid nothing for the wear and tear on our roads and highways. In fact this time Bruce baby get behind smog testing all diesel equipment that you failed to fight hard for about 15 years ago when you backed off fighting the trucking special interest lobbyist in Carson City at that legislative session when you could have stood up and been counted on at least once working in the interest of the people breathing all of this dirty burning diesel these many years along with the talcum powder fine desert dust that is still in the air all of the time. 
   After 25 years we are still seeing this smoky diesel and talcum fine dust from the dirtiest diesels in the construction industry coating everything on our property from our houses to our yards pools and everything else including vehicles standing outside and still Mr. Woodbury you have done nothing as was the case about 15 years ago when you backed down when the trucking industry lobbyist in Carson City objected to having diesels smog tested as gas automobiles are every year. OK let’s get with it and put the smog test on all diesels on the highways and in the construction industry on the roads and off road. This is years past due so just get it done in this session of the legislature. Any legislature and politician only need spend several days looking in on the thousands of people of all ages who are suffering respiratory illness and are going to our testing labs, doctors’ offices and x-ray labs to see how sick this community is from this dirty construction industry one of the worst in the entire United States. Please legislature, take this on even if Bruce won’t.

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