Tex Tax

As Uncle Hugh used to say, “I don’t know whether death and taxes are both certain. I ain’t died yet.”

Any sensible human being knows that the Tea Party Partisans are slack-jawed morons.

And that Lying Texas Governor Tricky Ricky Perry, the governor Texas didn’t want, would coon-hunt with a shih-tzu if he thought his hair would get on TeeVee for even a second.

But I suspect most of that knowledge is mere supposition.

Like, how much sense could these guys have, since they obviously still use Wildroot Cream-Oil?

But apart from the obvious — like protesting high taxes while standing on an $11 million government seawall to throw fake tea into a bay dredged at a cost of $20 million per annum that provides them with government jobs — there are sound historical reasons why the Tea Heads just ain’t right.

Especially in Texas.

Ballot Realities

Reason one: Let’s talk about the Yankee government briefly. What do we spend most of our money for? Well, more than half, about 54 percent, goes to guns, bullets, soldiers, and interest. Star Wars to Walter Reed. And the banks and insurance companies who lent us the money to make Iraq the garden spot it is today.

And just how many Tea Baggers oppose the wars in the Middle East?

Another 30 percent goes for everything from Social Security to education to Medicare. Let’s see the hands of all those who want to cut any of that stuff? Now, let’s see how many elected officials plan to make cutting any of that stuff part of their next campaigns.

Feel free to hack away at that other 16 percent, like the $20 billion in highways, a billion for GPS and HBO satellites, $2.4 billion for national parks and a couple of bills more for maybe the FBI, CIA, Border patrol, whatever.

Not that there isn’t waste; it’s just that where there’s a dollar, there’s an argument for why somebody needs it.

Texas Our Taxes

Reason two: Absent the federal government, learn some Spanish.

We can’t even stop unarmed civilians sneaking across the border to hang drywall.

How will we make out without the Yankee army against heavily armed, coked-up cartel gorillas?

Not to mention the guerillas.

Currently we spend just 6.2 percent of our $167 billion, or around $10.3 billion on state security, That’s cops and judges.

Want an army? Fort Hood maintenance and improvements alone this year were $13 billion.

But let’s pretend that no one would want to invade Texas.

We spend 44 percent of the state budget on education. That’s $73 billion or so. Add $10 billion that we would no longer get from the feds.

Health and human services makes up 31.6 percent of the budget, or $52.8 billion. Now add to that the loss of Social Security for everybody, young and old, in the state. Then add in Medicare, which most people do NOT want to do without, and the FDA, CDC and all the rest of the alphabet that keeps drug companies from poisoning us all and staves off a cholera comeback.

History Of Broke

For those of us who might have wondered why Texas would have ever joined the union in the first place, the answer is simple.

We were broke.

We owed about $10 million when the average family income was less than $600 per year. We had a population of around 200,000, almost all small farmers, who were using only about 6.8 percent of the land. We were engaged in a war with the Comanche that we had been losing since 1839. Plus, dispossessing Tejanos was expensive, since they tended to take it hard when the government steals from them. No imminent domain protests back then.

We had, even then, our share of something-for-nothing Tea Types.

Taxation was a complex compilation of exemptions and self-valuation that resulted in few taxes paid. Sheriffs, for example, collected the taxes, but only occasionally turned them it. To protest a tax rate, all one had to do was find two local people to say it was too high. Horses and poll tax were exempt for Indian fighters. And who wasn’t an Indian fighter? Horses kept for riding were taxed at $10 per year, but if the animal was ever used with a carriage, it was only a buck a head. Mules and draft animals were 25 cents per year, with an exemption of four head. Slaves were taxed up to $4 per year, but could be taxed at an ad valorem rate of one-fifth of one percent per hundred dollars of valuation. Tariffs were levied on all foreign goods, but only if they were delivered through the port of Galveston. Smuggling up and down the coast was rife, and so was born Corpus Christi.

Ever wonder what happened to that big chunk of New Mexico stretching all the way to Idaho that appeared on those old Texas maps?

Texas got on the flag and out of debt; the United States got the West.

Trade Up

Back at the turn of the last century, my grandfather’s taxes were levied at three days working on the county road crew. One if you brought a team of mules.

When it rained, he went to town horseback instead of in a wagon. He had a third grade education, a coal oil lamp and an outhouse.

It was a workable system.

Even people who had no money contributed to the general welfare.

Folks knew if you didn’t pay your fair share.

Then he got a car, my mother went to college, he had electric lights and running water.

He got a tax statement higher than a two week’s pay.

And he thought it was one helluva deal.