Bell

By Bill Richmond, originally published in Winchester News-Gazette.

The current health care debate has generated a lot of discussion on just what constitutes a "right". I've always maintained that our rights cannot conflict with somebody else's rights. That is, if something you consider to be your right requires the initiation of force against another individual, it isn't really a right. I don't think it matters whether you forcibly take some one's property on your own, or whether you designate someone else to take it for you.

The state legislators property tax solution may be starting to take affect. You may recall the push for a Constitutional amendment to cap property taxes at 1% of the assessed value for residential properties, 2% for agricultural properties, and 3% for business properties.

A lot of Democrats worried that it would limit the government's ability to collect enough money to fund everything they wanted to fund. A lot of Republicans claimed it was the only way to protect property owners. A lot of people, (Libertarians mostly, I think) worried that if the caps took effect, and even if the sales tax was raised 16%, the assessed value could change enough to negate any savings the property owners might temporarily receive.

There's something to said for brevity. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights contains 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words.

A federal directive written to regulate the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.

Sometimes governments verbosity is just annoying. Sometimes it's expensive.

The House version of the national health care bill contains 1990 pages, and 400,000 words. With a 10 year cost of $894 billion, that figures out to about $2.24 million per word.

Who ever said that talk was cheap?

Rex Bell is a Wayne County Libertarian that writes a monthly column on events that shape our lives from a libertarian point of view. If you have a comment or question on a particular subject, you can e-mail him at lpwc@msn.com or snail-mail him at 17059 State Road 38, Hagerstown.

HAGERSTOWN, IN -- I guess it's one of the signs of being an old man to reminisce about how much things used to cost. I've been in business long enough to remember when some new houses cost what some lawnmowers cost now.

I also remember, not to many years ago, when Americans only had to work 6 months out of the year to pay for the government.

This year, according to the folks over at Americans for Tax Reform, we had to work until August 12th to meet those obligations. That is a new record, and beat the 1982 previous record by 23 days.

Next year, I think I'll just stay in bed until September.

From an email sent to Wayne County/Richmond Libertarians by Chairman Rex Bell:

What would September be without garage sales and football? Probably pretty boring, huh?

In order to alleviate that boredom, the Libertarian Party of Wayne County announces it's 9th Annual LPWC Neat Stuff Garage Sale, and our first concession stand gig of the new school year.

This year's sale will take place on Saturday, September 5th; Sunday, September 6th; and Monday, September 7th, at 17059 State Road 38, Hagerstown.

On Thursday, September 3rd, at 6:00 P.M., we will set up the tents and tables. We need as many people as we can get for an hour or two that evening.

Chances are you've seen this video of John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, making fun of the suggestion that legislators should actually read proposed bills before they vote on them. It's not anything new.

Last year I questioned my State Representative, Tom Saunders, about a particularly stupid bill a particularly stupid bill that had just been passed. He told me he didn't remember hearing anything about it. We had the same discussion a couple of years earlier when a bill was passed that required special permission to buy more than two gallons of paint thinner at a time.

At first he denied voting for such a bill, and when I told him it passed 82-0, he explained again that he simply didn't have time to read all of the bills that they voted on.