Long before bilingual forms and cell phones, services like police, firemen and road maintenance were local government’s top priorities.  But now, no matter how fast the tax base grows, politicians routinely tell us we must pay more to sustain those vital functions.

However, if that were so, how can elected officials justify spending a dime on perks, charities and other nonessential expenditures?

The real concern for politicians is that when more tax dollars are used to meet genuine public needs, they have less discretionary spending ability -- and therefore less power.

Pleading with overburdened taxpayers to raise their allowance would be straightforward, but not likely to bear fruit.  So instead, they choose to wring their hands in seemingly reflective and insightful public concern as they peddle a perception of impending crisis, such as too few cops or otherwise unfixable roadways.

Once they have the public nodding their heads in agreement, their knee-jerk solution is a tax that dedicates the new money to rectifying the situation.  When voters bite the hook, the old money is then freed for use throwing around political weight.

That political shell game often triumphs because it takes advantage of the widely believed fallacy that taxes are the result of need.  The truth is, tax hikes are almost always about beliefs.

Consider the following statements:  Politicians, and the agencies they entrust, are both wise and frugal, seeking to deliver maximum value for each and every tax dollar.  Government solutions have been proven to be highly effective.  Most problems exist because you do not pay enough tax.

Chances are, unless you are under twelve, a socialist ideologue or yourself a politician, you found those contentions to be both naive and blatantly absurd.           

Yet, unless you vote against the new tax measures peppering your ballot, your actions affirm those cockamamie notions and, in the process, help to further empower an increasingly bloated, often exploitive government.

Simply stated, it is the nature of all governments to seek the transfer of power (often in the form of money) from the individual to the state.   

Our Founders did their level best to protect us from this tendency, but through crafty techniques and incrementalism, politicians have nonetheless succeeded wildly in overcoming the obstacles.

Consider how many tax rollbacks of any kind have occurred in your lifetime under any circumstance.  I’ll wager that total is fewer than the number of taxes and fees that appear each month on your phone bill alone.

Just five decades ago, a middle-class American family of four paid about six percent of their annual income in taxes of all types.  Today, such a family pays well over forty percent.

This state of affairs has resulted from a combination of factors, most notably:  the politicians desire for power, which is the ability to control money;  the wasteful nature of bureaucracy, which shares the cancer cell’s mission of growth for the sake of growth;  and the massive power wielded by public employees unions, of which the California legislature has long been an identifiable subsidiary.

Voters often get fooled into punishing themselves, approving tax increases they think someone else will pay.  But like water, taxes run downhill.  Taxes imposed on the rich are largely paid by the poor.  When corporations are taxed, they pass it along in the price of their product or service.  When land owners are taxed, tenants get the bill, and so on.  Don’t for an instant believe that politicians who pretend to be advocates for the poor are unaware of this.  They just recognize a proven tax marketing strategy (class warfare) when they see one.

Stripped of sugar coating, taxes are simply instruments of force used by the state to seize your money.  Since you go to jail if you don’t pay them, they should be seen as collected at gunpoint.  If you say that overstates the case, you might want to consult with Survivor’s original winner, Richard Hatch, from his prison cell.

In light of this, government should have a solemn obligation not to squander their takings.  For example, by what distorted sense of morality should government confiscate money at gunpoint, then donate it to charity?  Doing so only empowers politicians at the expense of individuals.  Besides, when left to rely on voluntary contributions, charities are funded in exact proportion to their recognized value.

The staggering level of waste and inefficiency that goes on within government agencies cannot possibly be understood by those who haven’t marinated in the system.  Having been an eyewitness to such a system for nearly 30 years, I can put my hand on the Bible and testify under oath to the cruelty inflicted upon taxpayers whenever government takes on a job that could be performed by any other means.

Presiding over such a world of waste, it is little wonder politicians view the perks and privileges they shuffle to each other as chump change.

More taxes only encourage politicians to conjure new ways of expanding government.  Why not insist their focus be limited to providing uncompromised essential services, and leave the discretionary spending to the families of those who earned the money?