Great sign.
Yesterday I happened to be watching the news at noon when they announced a gas tax protest rally would be held at 2pm at Sinclair’s gas station (the one with the big green plastic dinosaur next to Walmart).
Hosted by the Butte County Taxpayers League! Well excuse me, but who the hell is that?
https://buttetaxpayerscom.wordpress.com/about-2/
Seems this group has only been around for about six months, fronted by a local lawyer. They have a faceblob page as well. What’s funny is, they hadn’t posted anything about this rally, in fact, there’s been nothing posted on either site since June.
I like the sentiment, but I wonder – why so exclusive?
So, I signed up for e-mail updates, and left a note, inviting this shadowy group to come over and chat on the CTA blog, but I’m not holding my breath.
I did stop over at the rally, and I was happy to see a pretty good little mob, and more people arriving as we stood by.
Jim Nielsen is a good speaker, natural, and he made it clear – Californians are being ripped off, the gas tax hasn’t been used to fix the roads.
I had a hard time getting a picture of Nielsen, he’s small and the guy in front of me kept shifting back and forth. Nielsen is worth listening to, he knows the facts. You might not agree with him on everything, but he’ll engage. He was our first speaker, back when we still had meetings at the library, and he has always taken my concerns seriously, responding personally to e-mails.
What nobody addressed was what the state is actually doing with the gas tax money. Nobody has the nerve to talk about the pensions. Nielsen just went on and on about how we’re getting ripped off – I have to wonder, how much money goes into legislative salaries, including their well-heeled staffers.
How much money are they giving this lawyer to front their “taxpayers league”?
I was lucky to have just missed Gallagher’s little blab – that guy is all about himself. He’s going places alright, I’m just not sure I want to be holding onto his coattails.
When LaMalfa stepped up to the microphone I lost track of what he was jammering about and began to pay attention to the crowd. Some of them were obviously staffers and other government connected people, but there were others at the rally, including the hostile looking man who made the “Taxifornia” sign. He looked completely out of place – an old, disheveled man with tattoos on his hands, he looked like he had missed the turn into Walmart. But he held the sign, and let me take a picture of it, so he must be a believer.
I know the state steals from us. But I didn’t see anything in this rally but politicking. These guys are up for election again – the campaign starts the day after every election, remember? This rally, held long after the damage has already been done (the tax takes effect Wednesday), just didn’t seem very genuine.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
The gas tax goes up 12 cents a gallon tomorrow and a whopping 20 cents a gallon for diesel.
The politicians were really sneaky about it as they had the tax take effect right when the winter blend of gas hits the market which is traditionally a less expensive blend so the b@stard politicians hope the public won’t notice the increase as much as gas typically goes down in price in November.
Also, the tax will go up every year automatically as it is indexed to inflation and there is another provision for the tax on gas to go up another 6 cents a gallon in 2019.
And as part of the tax increase package the thieves in Sacramento passed earlier this year you will be paying an additional $25 to $175 per car for your vehicle registration.
It’s amazing that the people of this state put up with this. It is nothing more than theft by corrupt politicians and special interests and no one seems to care.
Thanks for covering that Bob. Nielsen spelled it out pretty good, but I didn’t have my notebook so couldn’t remember the details.
Imagine what 20 cents a gallon on diesel will do to shipping costs.
These politicians are nothing but thieves.
Yeah another business hostile move, whether we’re talking brick-and-mortar or online.
The other day I was talking to someone and off-hand mentioned that this is a high tax state. The person flew off the handle and told me that is not the case at all. He said that taxes in California are pretty much in line with the rest of the country. It turns out this person is a Democrat. Gee, what a surprise. These people are so brainwashed they have no clue what reality is.
The Democrat ideology has become pretty selfish – “me and mine “. The old ideal of community before self is dead. The stand the party line because that’s what’s good for them.
It’s an orchestrated ripoff. It’s not about ideology, it’s about greed.
That is a great sign but I think the bear should be replaced with a pig with the head of Jerry Brown.
Yeah I’m going to make my own version.
I went by a couple of gas stations close to where I live yesterday and today to see what would happen with the price.
One station increased the price by the exact amount of the tax increease: 12 cents. The other station increased the price by 15 cents. (It had a lower price than the first station yesterday.)
So much for the hope that the winter blend of gas would off set at least part of the tax increase, at least for now.
I want to thank the Demorats for making this all possible and I must also thank the lone Republowclown who voted for this: Anthony Cannella. The Demorats bought him off with over a half a billion dollars of pork.
And the love will keep coming. With the tax on diesel going up 20 cents a gallon everything shipped by truck will go up. And then there’s the vehicle registration tax jumping up next year as well. And in 2019 the gas tax will go up an additional 6 cents a gallon. And of course all these taxes will go up automatically every year forever as they are indexed to inflation which is a stealth tax the government imposes on us.
So bend over and smile wide! And remember, your government loves you and everything it does is for the children.
And ironically I am dealing with fleas as my neighbor’s dog got into my place and it turned out he was infested with them.
So it’s not just the blood sucking parasites in Sucramento that I have to deal with now!
And we likely have to deal with the human bloodsuckers just like the insects – a toxic environment that is almost as bad for us as them.
You might think about getting your carpet cleaned before you try pesticides, if you know a good technician. Sometimes that works.
I am trying both of those things and more. So far so good.
But I am not optimistic. A single flea can lay over a thousand eggs in its life time, so you need to get them all.and that’s a hard thing to do.
A friend of mine spent over a thousand dollars and countless hours trying to get rid of fleas and six months later he still has them. And he doesn’t even have pets. But he lives back east. Maybe the fleas there are worse.
Trying to get rid of fleas is like trying to get rid of politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep raising taxes. The best you can do is try to control them but they are always there waiting to bite you.
When we had cats, we had fleas all the time. I vacuumed, we bombed, we shampooed the rugs – OMG – ever bathe a cat? You’re right, fleas are as hard to get rid of as the bureaucrats and politicians! Our vet told us, fleas get into the ground sometimes, and then you have infestation. We finally ended up on this property, after a pack of filthy pigs lived here for years – but no fleas! Termites, oh yeah, but no fleas!
No politician wants to talk about pensions because they don’t want to piss off the public safety unions or for that matter any state employee. They’ve got us. The pension has become a monster that everyone is afraid of, keep feeding it or it will turn on you.
I just saw “The Blob” over the Halloween weekend, I get the picture!
We can’t drop the pensions in the Artic, like Steve McQueen did in the movie, cause of Global Warming. So, how can we starve this thing? Cut it off the junk? It’s so hard to get the public to act, until they have a monster coming at them out of their gas tank.