(Jim Edwards) – Get ready for massive fee increases. Now that many politicians have been cornered into signing “No New Taxes Pledges” and such similar things, the incumbents that have brought us to where we are now are relying more on the use of new fees and fee increases to cover their lavish lifestyles.
When I renewed my vehicle registration this year, there was a new fee for $43.00 called a “Supplemental Government Services Fee.” That is on top of all the other registration fees and taxes already over imposed on us all.
When we pay a fee for a government service, the fee should reflect the cost of providing that service, not be used as a cash cow for all the things that we might never agree to pay for if we were being taxed for it directly. A fee in excess of the cost of the service is a back door tax, plain and simple.
None of our long term bureaucrats or current elected officials are blowing the whistle on this abuse of the fee system because it is how they are making up their shortages without having to face any real cuts. They also get to ‘appear’ to be holding the line on taxes.
Fees to record a deed or other document in Clark County, Nevada, have more than doubled since I worked there, especially when you add the “Technology Fee” to each document and an “Electronic Recording Fee” and doubling of the recording fee from $7.00 to $14.00 outright.
The County Bureaucrats are hiding behind the excuse that the fees are set by the State Legislature. Yes they are, but no one is advocating to bring this under control and roll back these fees that are being used for everything under the sun besides what they are being charged for.
This is one of the main centers of money power still left to these horse-traders in our state legislatures. When we pay our car registration (we have to drive) or fees to record a document (the title companies always eventually pass the fees on to all of us), only a tiny portion of what we just paid goes towards what we thought we were paying for. The vast majority of most of our fees now seems to be funding things that we have no idea of what they are. Trying to find out so far seems to be unreasonably difficult.
We have all known for decades that faceless bureaucrats in the Federal Government believe that they know better how to spend our money than we do. So they take it away through taxes and fees and give it back to us their way.
Well, now the state and local bureaucrats have found the way to do this through fees we HAVE to pay. The possible fees and the sizes are endless and are growing. If we don’t shed some light on this parlor trick and soon, “No New Taxes Pledges” will be meaningless and we will be as stupid as our ruling classes must think we are.
I am running for Clark County Recorder to start shedding some light on this and other reasons why ALL the incumbents must go. None of them are advocating for the bill-paying public on this issue.
Whether we fork over the money through a TAX or a FEE, it is still our money and comes out of the same pot: your individual budget. If we stand by and watch while our counties wring every last dollar from small businesses through increasing fees for inspections and paperwork checks, etc., after all the businesses have been run out of town, they’ll have to come back to us for the difference.
We have to put our County Governments on a diet. Every time we citizens want to roll back a fee or a tax, the bureaucracy lands on us like a ton of bricks, telling us that the sky will fall if we take their money away. Again, it is OUR money, at least it used to be.
If a budget item deserves funding, then it should have to face the budget process in the light of day and have money taxed and appropriated for it like everything else. If the fees we pay to record our records, register our cars and license our pets cost $5.00 to actually process, but we are paying $20.00, $50.00 or even $100.00 for the service. What in the heck is all that other money going to pay for?
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