Three things that are giving my friend Brett a headache

My friend Brett recently vented about a few things and I happen to agree with many of his sentiments. He said I could repost it here, so I have. Enjoy, and please leave your thoughts in the comments afterward.



The Next Notebook Trend: Cellphone-Like Contract Deals
Yeah, here’s a great idea- lock people into stupid notebook contracts like cell phone companies do so that they end up paying 3 or 4 times what the product is actually worth. The only thing stupider: the people who would actually fall for something like this. No offense, iPhone users, it’s nearly unavoidable in your case.

15% Fat Tax
With “the troubled economy,” state budgets are coming up short. Their solution? Tax the people. Here’s what somebody isn’t understanding: People were not made to support government, rather, government was made to support the people. Remember that whole “by the people, for the people” line?

Who is the biggest, most bloated, grotesquely obese entity on Earth? The U.S. Government. And they want to tax us for being fat?

Instead of penalizing the people because of a desire they have for a certain type of food, government should be cutting ITSELF down to make up for the hard times, not cutting the people down to make up for their own glutenous, fatty, short-sighted spending habits. The government should be doing what American families are doing to weather the hard times—cutting back, re-evaluating programs, canceling cable, re-budgeting and adjusting appetites that sometimes get out-of-hand when times are too good to be true.

How any elected representative can, in good conscience, even throw this idea around in his head for more than 3 seconds is completely beyond me. And the one thing stupider:

North Carolina’s idea of a Mileage Tax
Are elected officials going completely insane? Charging you for every mile you drive? So they want you to pay taxes out of the income you worked for to build the roads, tax you again to buy the car, tax you again every year to own the car, tax you again to buy the gas, and then on top of all that, TAX YOU AGAIN WHEN YOU ACTUALLY DRIVE THE CAR?!

I’m sorry, but when a government has to insert itself to take money from the people at every single exchange and interaction—and it still can’t support itself, it is time for that government to go. And I’m not kidding. I’m blowing a gasket. That’s WITHOUT mentioning that they propose to track the mileage by installing a GPS unit so that they know where, when, and how far you’ve gone? This is like a bad dream.

How long can the American people support what has become an un-manageable, irresponsible, corrupt government who, instead of solving problems, creates them at every turn? I have a headache.

Originally posted here.