$50 billion more for Wars

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Friday to give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. military efforts against terrorism, money that would push total spending for the operations beyond $350 billion.
In a 97-0 vote, the GOP-controlled Senate signed off on the money as part of a $445 billion military spending bill for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
None of it is earmarked for newer
and better equipment for our soldiers.
The Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers, says the Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month for Iraq and $1 billion for Afghanistan, and war costs could total $570 billion by the end of 2010. This is in addition to the already spent $311 billion. All told, by the end of the year twenty ten, over $900 billion dollars will be spent. A Trillion US Tax dollars spent on lies.
Think about this – Our government could have given each and every United States citizen $5 million dollars each, for what it is costing to run these ill-conceived wars. Which would you rather have?

The Teacher-Pay Myth

By Jay P. Greene and Marcus Winters
FEW cliches permeate our culture more thoroughly than that of the underpaid schoolteacher. In fact, many people would say that if they know anything about public schools it is that teachers deserve far more money than they actually get. Thus, many will sympathize with this week's vote by the New York City teachers union to hold a strike vote in a few weeks if stalled contract talks continue to deny them a raise.But the idea that teachers are underpaid is a myth. When we discard our presuppositions and look at the evidence, it turns out that teachers actually are better paid than many people realize.As of 2002, the average salary for teachers nationwide was about $44,600. That does seem modest. But we need account for the relatively few hours that teachers actually spend working compared to other professionals.Teachers have long vacation periods, several personal and sick days and work a shorter day than most other professionals. We can only properly understand these hours away from work as a benefit of the teaching profession. That is, a teacher who earns $45,000 to work for nine months is clearly better paid than a nurse who gets the same salary for working 12 months.Since teachers' work schedule distorts direct salary comparisons with other jobs, we need to look at hourly pay.According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the average public elementary school teacher in the United States earns about $30.75 an hour. The average hourly pay of other public-service employees - such as firefighters ($17.91) or police officers ($22.64) - pales in comparison.Indeed, teachers' hourly rate exceeds even those in professions that require far more training and expertise. Compare the schoolteacher's $30.75 to the average biologist's $28.07 an hour - or the mechanical engineer's $29.76 or the chemist's $30.68.Whose hourly pay is competitive with that of teachers? Computer scientists ($32.86), dentists ($35.51) and even nuclear engineers ($36.16).Note, too, that these hourly figures exclude benefits, such as health coverage and retirement accounts, which are typically more generous for government employees, such as teachers, than for private-sector workers.New York City's teachers are especially well paid. According to the state's school district profile, the median teacher in the city earns $53,017 a year. Unfortunately, information on the number of hours worked by the average teacher in the City is not readily available. But, if we make the generous assumption that the average teacher in New York works the maximum 6.6 hours a day allowed by the union contract for the full 181 school days, that works out to $44.38 an hour.So, if teachers are underpaid, then workers in other professions are badly underpaid, too. But there's no clamor to raise the pay of computer scientists, dentists or engineers.But don't teachers spend a great deal of time grading papers and creating lesson plans while away from school? Some do - but the comparisons here are still fair - because other professionals do work away from the office, too. Engineers and computer scientists are certainly no strangers to long nights working at home.Nor do teachers spend all of their time at school in the classroom. In fact, teachers spend fewer hours actually instructing students than many recognize. Stanford's Terry Moe worked with data straight from the nation's largest teacher union's own data - and found that the average teacher in a department setting (that is, where students have different teachers for different subjects) was in the classroom for fewer than 3.9 hours out of the 7.3 hours at school each day.With several hours set aside at school for course-planning and grading, it strains plausibility that on average teachers must spend more hours working at home than do other professionals.The myth that teachers are underpaid is a significant hurdle to educational reform because it helps prop up the falsehood that schools in general are underfunded. In fact, taxpayers spend more money on public K-12 schools than they do on national defense, even more than the Gross Domestic Product of Russia.Yet, despite this generous investment, student outcomes as measured by standardized tests and graduation rates have been stagnant since the Ford administration.If we are to improve public schools, we must understand that the facts don't always square with our impressions. The story that on average school teachers are underpaid compared to other professionals is as widely told as anything from Aesop, and is just as mythical.Jay P. Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of the book "Education Myths."


Crime Against the People

WASHINGTON - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday indicted Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates on charges of conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post. A defiant DeLay insisted he was innocent and called the prosecutor a “partisan fanatic.”
The indictment accused DeLay, 58, of a conspiracy to violate Texas election law, which prohibits the use of corporate donations to advocate the election or defeat of political candidates. Prosecutors say the alleged scheme worked in a roundabout way, with the donations going to a DeLay-founded political committee, then to the Republican National Committee and eventually to GOP candidates in Texas.

Still no Armor for Soldiers

WASHINGTON - Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon has still failed to figure out a way to reimburse soldiers for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.
Soldiers and their parents are still spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for armor they say the military won’t provide.
“Your expectation is that when you are sent to war, that our government does everything they can do to protect the lives of our people, and anything less than that is not good enough,” said a former Marine who spent nearly $1,000 two weeks ago to buy lower-body armor for his son, a Marine serving in Fallujah.
The father asked that he be identified only by his first name — Gordon — because he is afraid of retribution against his son.
“I wouldn’t have cared if it cost us $10,000 to protect our son, I would do it,” said Gordon. “But I think the U.S. has an obligation to make sure they have this equipment and to reimburse for it. I just don’t support Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of going to war with what you have, not what you want. You go to war prepared, and you don’t go to war until you are prepared.”
Soldiers and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees, medical supplies and even global positioning devices.
“The bottom line is that Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department are failing soldiers again,”


FEMA is not the only Miss-Managed Agency

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters.
FEMA's top three leaders arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. A former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative fills two other senior operational jobs.
Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But, inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.
Most agencies, at almost every level of government, hire family, friends, and large donation contributors rather than experienced professionals to run key government institutions. There is not a State, County, City, or Village exempt from this abominable behavior. How many other tragedies are lurking that unqualified people will try to manage?
My guess is; MANY...
The New Orleans fiasco was not an issue of race. It is an issue of mismanagement, incompetence, and leadership failure.

Why New Orleans must be rebuilt

By George Friedman
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans. During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the prize.Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways, distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it could recover.The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn, soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete and so on. A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities. There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not been lost.What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead, others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to.The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not be inhabitable for a long time. It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home -- their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time, these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population and workforce patterns in the region.A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would always be at risk to another Katrina.The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States.Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming, and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq, premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.


Education Myths

Much of what people believe about education policy is simply not true. An examination of the evidence reveals that many common claims about education are as mythological as anything found in Homer or Aesop.

For example, many people believe that schools are desperately under-funded. In fact, public K-12 spending is approaching $10,000 per pupil — double what it was three decades ago, adjusting for inflation. And total school spending is approaching $500 billion — more than we spend on national defense ($454 billion) and more than the entire GDP
of Russia ($433 billion).

Many people believe that teachers are horribly underpaid. In fact, the average elementary-school teacher makes $30.75 per hour, more than architects ($26.64), mechanical engineers ($29.46), and chemists ($30.68).

Many people believe that student achievement has been deteriorating for decades. In fact, today's students perform about as well as their parents in terms of standardized test scores and high school graduation rates.

Why is education so prone to myths?

Part of the problem is that almost everyone imagines himself an expert about schools. Everyone has been through school, most people have had children in school, and many people have worked in schools or know someone who has. We tend to generalize from our direct experience even when our perspective may be narrow or distorted. In other policy areas less familiar to us we are more likely to rely on systematic evidence but in education we think we already have all of the evidence we need.

Another part of the problem is that education policy involves children and anything involving children evokes strong emotions. Those emotions ensure our attention to education issues but they can also cloud our reasoning. For example, because we really care about children, it is difficult to question claims that we need to spend more money to educate them. We wouldn't want others, or even ourselves, to think that we were stingy about providing children the services they need.

But the most important reason myths are so prevalent in education policy is that there are interest groups promoting them. Unfortunately, teachers unions, school-board associations, and others with a financial stake in education policy take advantage of our vulnerability to myths about education. While most of us feel comfortable entrusting our children to their teachers at school each day, the interest groups that represent them and their schools do not warrant our trust. Teacher unions and the rest of the education establishment, like other interest groups, will support claims that advance their agendas regardless of whether those claims are based on facts or myths.

This interest-group behavior is not unique to education policy. For example, everyone recognizes the role that interest groups play in promoting sugar price supports or in the construction of roads. The sugar industry and construction lobbyists, like teachers unions, are relatively indifferent to whether their arguments are supported by evidence as long as they further their interests.

We usually recognize these interest groups for what they are and take their claims with a large grain of salt. But in education policy our emotional commitment to teachers and children blinds us to this self-interested behavior of education interest groups. We want to believe that education policy is not governed by the same crass political horse-trading that sets the government price for sugar or determines which congressional district will get a new bridge.

Our desire to believe that education policymaking is exceptional — that it is fueled by the love of children rather than the maneuvering of organized interests allows education myths to proliferate. These myths cause real harm. We can't improve public schools without a proper understanding of what ails them. We need to place less trust in our own experiences, our emotional impulses, and the organized-interests pretending to be advocates for children.

We need to put more trust in the evidence.

— Jay P. Greene is Head of the Department of Education Reform at the
University of Arkansas and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where Marcus A. Winters is a senior research associate. They are authors of Education Myths, published by Rowman and Littlefield.


A COMMENT
FROM Paul SchusterOn Mon, 12 Sep 2005 19:20 , Paul Schuster
I disagree with the fixed rate, graduated flat tax that you propose.
The one important thing you leave out is the moral imperative of a citizen keeping all that he earns. The second thing your proposal leaves out is that it does not turn the continuously running money spigot in Washington, made possible only by the Federal tax on income, to the 'off' position.
We have pork and wasted revenue in the deficit budget precisely because the government has a continuous, uninterrupted stream of income, which consists mainly of the tax on income.
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... the Money Power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign"' by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war." - Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was right. But he was not talking in terms of taxation. He was talking in terms of 'the Money Power' a privately owned, for profit, central bank, like the Bank of England. The international money lenders were preying on America and this was what Lincoln saw.
You point out that Lou Dobbs says,werepoint out that Lou Dobbs says,
"Number 1, we're not creating jobs in the private sector in this country. That has never before happened in our history. Our economists and our politicians, our leaders, need to come up with answers, not dogma.Number 2, we haven't had a trade surplus in this country in more than two decades. And our trade deficit continues to soar to new record levels.Number 3, we have lost three million jobs in this country over the past three years and millions more American jobs are at risk of being outsourced to cheap overseas labor markets. "
Now that we live in the era of the ideas and political policies of "Globalism", the Bank and the political power it enjoys seek to expand profit opportunity and increase operating profits by spreading the wealth to "cheap overseas" and intra-regional, "labor markets". Although I don't agree with statement Number 1 above, Mr. Dobbs is probably correct in each of his other statements, but interestingly, in this analysis he does not appear to connect the globalist policies and political power of the Bank with any of the infirmities he mentions above. It is truly impressive what people with a microphone and a camera will say these days. It is the Bank's shrewd manipulation of the American economy, as well as the manipulation of other national economies, notably the G8, which provide the international money, trade, and labor manipulations we see.
It is the privately owned, for profit, central bank, the Federal Reserve, which controls the expansion or contraction of the American economy. Direct taxation of income was just a Bank prerequisite, to collateralize the government debt to the Bank. Notice that the Glass-Owen Act was proposed prior to the proposal of the 16th Amendment and then implemented being known as the Federal Reserve Act.
No, the correct solution to the problem you propose is the Fair Tax. It does two things well. First, it allows a producer to keep all of his produce (at least at the Federal level), Second, it turns off the revenue spigot in Washington which the Bank and the politicians are satiated with.
You will never properly control economic policy in America, or have America's economic resources be applied properly when you allow a privately owned, for profit, Central Bank control monetary and economic policy and manipulate political policy. That political power and economic power also controls politicians, who control taxation.
I do agree with you, however, they all should be thrown out of office.
Paul Schuster

IN REPLY
Hi Paul,
We are glad that taxation issues are rising to the top of peoples thinking and actions. This nation is nearing another revolution if something is not done soon. However, we do have a right to disagree over the best way to solve the issue. There are two prevalent issues that are major concerns for American citizens (whether they know it or not). First, political figures at all levels of government, which includes local village and school boards, have forgotten who they are supposed to work for. Second, corporations are forced to seek out the cheapest labor, including child and slave labor, in order to satisfy Wall Street. How does UACT solve some of these issues?First - Politicians only get your money if you have a job. There is no more homeowner’s tax, local tax, village fees, or any State, Federal, County fees and tax on any product sold. Offices get your money only if you have a job.So think about it.Politicians will be forced to ensure the people are happy and thriving in order for them to get more of our money (raises and bonuses). And the more we make, the more governments will have. This means that they will pass laws that make it beneficial for companies to keep jobs in our country, states, and villages, and ensure the citizenship keeps thriving within their career aspirations.Taxation on Corporations will be lowered in order to make companies come back to America, which, along with the elimination of Sales tax and other fees placed on items (gas, food, toiletries etc.) will drive profits upward and appease Wall Street. The result is happy citizens, corporations, and politicians (although less happy than the other two). A society needs all three in order to remain strong.The Fair Tax places too much of a burden on the lower classes, does not eliminate local taxation which is proven to be more abusive than the federal tax, and does not solve the issue of politicians working for the people. If you only have a sales tax system, the government will still get your money whether you have a job or not. They may not get as much, but they still get it. Even homeless people will be forced to pay a tax (and there are millions of them). You cannot appease the homeless with tax returns because they don't have a home for the returns to go to. The Fair Tax will drive luxury items out of reach for the ordinary person, and really, helps perpetuate the gap between the rich and poor. The United Citizens of America urges you to invest more research into your current thought process. The Fair Tax system may not be the best choice for American citizens.


Toilet Paper Tax

"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida's Legislature is flush with good ideas. Sen. Al Lawson's involves a 2 cent-per-roll tax on toilet paper to pay for wastewater treatment and help small towns upgrade their sewer systems.The Democratic lawmaker's pay-as-you-go bill has been the source of many jokes - bathroom humor you might say - but he says the issue is a serious one, especially in some of the fast-growing Panhandle coastal counties in his district."

States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile

College student Jayson Just commutes an odometer-spinning 2,000 miles a month. As CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reports, his monthly gas bill once topped his car payment. "I was paying about $500 a month," says Just. So Just bought a fuel efficient hybrid and said goodbye to his gas-guzzling BMW. And what kind of mileage does he get? "The EPA estimate is 60 in the city, 51 on the highway," says Just. And that saves him almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead...Tax-by-mile advocates say it may be the only way to ensure that fuel efficiency doesn't prevent smooth sailing down the road."

America's Wackiest Taxes

You might pay taxes on illegal drugs, Pepsi, playing cards, and being a star, and that's not all--"New York (CNN/Money) - History is littered with odd tax schemes. William Pitt the Younger introduced a tax on windows in Britain. Peter the Great taxed souls, and Nero, urine. Let no man say that we here in America cannot compete for oddity of tax laws. We have some really weird assessments on the books. In certain states and cities, you'll pay special taxes for buying a deck of cards, possessing illegal drugs, and, possibly, buying things from naked people. Here are a dozen peculiar state and local taxes, as noted by tax information publisher CCH Inc. and the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax policy research group. Illegal drug tax: On Jan. 1, Tennessee became the latest of 23 states to institute a tax for possession of illegal drugs. Usually, you have to be in possession of a minimum quantity, say over 42.5 grams of marijuana in North Carolina, to be subject to the tax. In Tennessee, when you acquire an illegal drug (even "moonshine"), you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax, in exchange for which you'll receive stamps to affix to your illegal substance. The stamps serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product. Don't worry that you might get in trouble for admitting you have enough drugs to fuel a rave party for years. You need not provide identification to get the stamps and it's illegal for revenue employees to rat you out. Still, next door in North Carolina, which has had a similar law for 15 years, only 79 folks have voluntarily come forward since 1990, according to the Department of Revenue. Most were thought to be stamp collectors, or perhaps just high. Another 72,000 were taxed after they were already busted. North Carolina has collected $78.3 million thus far, almost all from those arrested and found without stamps. Flush tax: In 2004, Maryland began charging homeowners and businesses for producing wastewater. The funds will be used to help protect Chesapeake Bay waters. Maryland will add $2.50 a month to the sewer bills of residents hooked up to treatment systems. It will also assess an annual charge of $30 to homeowners with their own septic systems, even though many believe these residents add little to the stream of pollutants that have damaged the Chesapeake. Virginia appears poised to enact a similar flush tax of $1 a week per household. Sex sales tax: Sin got pricier in Utah last July, when owners of sexually explicit businesses where "nude or partially nude individuals perform any service" began paying a 10 percent sales and use tax on admission and user fees as well as the sales of merchandise, food, drink, and services. That would be on top of the 4.75 percent sales tax the state already imposes on most transactions, sexually explicit or not. Not that the measure will raise much money. So far only one or two businesses in staid Utah are actually wild enough to be subjected to the tax. Jock tax: This is a tax on income earned by athletes, entertainers (OK, not just jocks), and their various entourages, including non-athletic or non-performer employees. Generally, any money player or performer earns while playing in that particular city or state gets taxed. California levied the first jock tax in 1991, on athletes from Chicago, right after the Chicago Bulls beat the L.A. Lakers. (Chicago quickly responded in kind.) Today, most states with a professional sports team impose a jock tax. William Ahern, of the Tax Foundation, said a DC United soccer player received tax forms from 10 different states. The player was no Alex Rodriguez. "The guy makes $26,000 a year," says Ahearn. "The jock taxes he owed varied from $200 to $2." Sparkler and novelties tax: In West Virginia, businesses selling sparklers and novelties pay a special fee on top of the state's 6 percent sales tax. The novelties, according to the West Virginia State Tax Department's information sheet on sparklers and novelties, include: Explosive caps designed to be fired in toy pistols; snake and glow worms and; trick noisemakers which produce a small report designed to surprise the user. Playing card tax: If you want a deck of cards in Alabama, be prepared to shell out an extra dime. The state government has levied a 10-cent tax on the purchase of a playing deck that contains "no more than 54 cards," plus the retailer must pay an annual license tax of $3 and a fee of $1, according to the Alabama Department of Revenue. Blueberry tax: Like fresh, wild blueberries? If they come from Maine, you may be paying a bit of a premium. Anyone who grows, purchases, sells, handles or processes the fruit in the state is subject to a penny-and-a-half-per-pound tax. Wagering tax: Speaking of cards – and bets – most people know they have to pay tax on their gambling winnings. But some places, including Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, and Oklahoma, exact a wagering tax on casino or track owners, whether you gamble or not. It can get passed onto customers through the cost of casino amusements. Illinois forces casinos to charge a $2 admission price, which is essentially a tax since it must be remitted to the city and state. Fur clothing tax: Keeping comfy during Minnesota winters can cost you. Businesses in the state must pay a 6.5 percent tax on the total amount received for the sale, shipping, and finance charges associated with the purchase of clothing in which fur accounts for three times more of the garment than the next most valuable material. Most types of clothing in Minnesota are sales-tax-free, so if you want to keep warm switch to "leather, suede, or other animal skins where the hair, fleece or fur fiber is completely removed," as the Minnesota Department of Revenue Fur Clothing Tax instructions form puts it, Fountain soda drink tax: This one hails from Chicago. If you buy a "fountain soda drink," you'll pay a 9 percent tax. If you buy the same soda in a bottle or a can, you'll only pay 3 percent. Amusement tax: Ever wondered about the extra tax you pay on stadium seats? That's the amusement tax, often levied at both city and state levels. Most states, including Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland, and cities like New Orleans, have amusement taxes on tickets sold at any venue with more than 750 to 1,000 seats. Amusing, isn't it? Tattoo tax: As of last July, anyone in Arkansas wanting to get a eagle etched on their abs or a nose ring notched in their nostrils will have to pay an additional 6 percent, as the state included tattooing and body piercing in its list of services subject to sales taxes. Electrolysis treatments count, too. To make this a baker's dozen, we'll throw in a freebie: Tennessee imposes a litigation tax. The tax varies with the offense, with the cheapest being $1 for a metered parking violation. No sum is too small for the tax man."