Opinion

A lob at lobbyists

Thursday, February 5, 2004

A Legislative Bill, 1025, coming up on the agenda for the Revenue Committee of the Nebraska Legislature would increase sales taxes on several services. One of the services included in the list is lobbying -- which could be a great break for Nebraska taxpayers.

Look at it this way -- there will be hundreds of lobbyists lobbying against a sales tax on lobbying. What that means for the state of Nebraska is that the lobbyists will be so busy lobbying against a lobby tax, they won't have time to lobby against all the other things facing the Legislature.

So -- without lobbyists, we can look forward to an easy flow through the next few months.

Just maybe we can begin looking a Medicaid reform, changes in school funding, spending tobacco settlement money on something besides a sports arena, a repeal of term limits and -- if LB 1025 should happen to pass despite the lobbying lobbyists -- a decrease in sales taxes from the current 5.5 percent to 4.85 percent.

Speaking of lobbyists, we could certainly use a few to approach Mother Nature and discuss the lack of moisture in the area.

I don't know how anyone could have missed it, but in case you did, we finally got snow. Depth predictions ranged from three inches to a foot, but by the way the local grocery stores looked Wednesday night, you would have thought they were predicting at least six feet.

Some co-workers and I were discussing "real snows" with one of our younger associates. Of course we told her the whole "10 feet of snow, going uphill both ways" story but she wasn't convinced. One of our more experienced co-workers started to tell the young lady about how it was when she was a kid ... "They hadn't even invented snow, yet," I smarted off. Hopefully the wonderful lady will forgive me and start talking to me by the time this 30-year drought is over.

But its true, not the part about my co-worker -- the part about younger people not knowing anything about snow.

It used to be that the lady of the house had at least a month's supply of food canned, frozen, dried, or otherwise stored in case of emergencies. My parents used to make a monthly trip from Cambridge to McCook for their major grocery buying trips.

Today, jumping in a car and driving to the nearest grocery store is so convenient, most people buy for the week -- or, as in my case, they buy when they feel like cooking. So when the threat of a snow storm appears on the weather radar, people go out in droves, like little mice arriving in country homes about the time winter starts approaching.

It kind of makes you wonder -- how will people ever adjust once this drought does end?

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: