6-5-25

I don’t know about you but I loathe paying taxes….but I also know that it’s a

necessary thing to some degree…..roads, police officers, the military, the court

system…..it all has to be paid for somehow….but what is amazing is when

government forgets that it doesn’t need to do everything….and they find ways to

make life more difficult, which costs more, and then it becomes as if you’ve been

taxed just for living because the government made your life more

expensive…..there’s an amazing story in Matthew 17 about taxes…..but it wasn’t a

normal tax….it was a “temple tax”….it was originally supposed to be collected

during the time of the census….but over time it grew to become an annual tax that

all Jewish men had to pay for the upkeep of the temple…..so on this one particular

day the religious leaders thought they would trap Jesus by questioning whether he

had paid his “temple tax”…..keep in mind that if you were a part of the royal

family you were exempt from having to pay the temple tax…..really?....apparently

so….so some people had to pay for the church while others got their special way

out of paying for it…..and all the while the tax collectors for the temple saw a way

to try and use the temple tax to curb Jesus’ ministry and keep him in line….but

Jesus wasn’t fazed….he told Peter to go catch a fish, look in its mouth, and he

would find a coin that would be enough to pay off the temple tax…..that’s a crazy

story!....and it worked!.....the first fish Peter caught contained a coin in just the

right amount…..Jesus said it was important so that no one could cast blame on

him….he could have snapped his fingers and the issue would have gone

away….but he chose to put Peter, a fisherman by trade, into a position to do some

work, to pay some taxes, and if you get down to it….he still kept the fish which

had value in itself…..probably had fish for dinner that night…..that’s a cool

story……

But isn’t it interesting how leaders can get the idea that taxes are the way to

go….and the leaders in that Biblical story were using a tax as a means to trap Jesus

and his folowers….to impede their progress….to mock them, and to try and keep

them in line…..yeah, how’d that work out…..2000 years later nobody knows that

tax collectors name….but everybody has heard of Jesus…..

But seriously…..taxes, and hyper-regulation, are really the same thing….when

government tries to impede your progress it only winds up costing you more to

work through the red tape….it’s like a taxation by other means when a bureaucrat

slaps another regulation on life….and that, my friends was the catalyst that

launched this country……

Two Hundred and Fifty-One years ago the world awoke to a whole new

dynamic….the event became known as “The Boston Tea Party”….but have you

ever considered why it happened? Have you ever considered what the underlying

point was? And for that matter, have you ever considered whether or not the issues

that caused that amazing act of civil disobedience might still be issues for our

current times?......taxes are just a fact of life…. but problems arise when

government’s insatiable appetites for more and more and more create what we call

tax burdens…..and sometimes they create taxes without even calling them

taxes…..and when that happens the people have to speak up and tell government

that enough is enough…..In 1773 the British Parliament passed what became

known as the “Tea Act”….keep in mind that tea was a main staple of the daily diet

in colonial times….raising the cost of tea back then would be like raising the cost

sliced bread today….everybody used it, everybody bought it, everybody felt the

sting of higher taxes on something that everybody used every day….and the British

Parliament could care less about those silly dirt scratchers living in the colonies. So

they sipped their own tax free tea and made life more costly for their

subjects…..But then they really ticked everybody off when they changed the rules

altogether….You see there were already certain taxes in place that everyone

grudgingly knew about….As part of the Townshend Act a levy on imports of

goods, including tea, was enacted to help fund the governments of the American

colonies….Colonials grumbled, but the Townshend Act taxation remained in

place….then they were raised….then they were used to punish….then they were

used to allow for the British Parliament to raise even more taxes…..And then, they

were used only on certain people and not others…..The British East India

Company developed a trade route to China and began importing Chinese tea to the

Colonies….but they were tied in with big government in London, they had all the

best lobbyists, they were friends of the Crown…..so the British Government

decided that the East India Company didn’t have to pay the Townshend Act taxes

on tea to the Colonies….basically, the East India Company wormed its way out of

paying what everyone else had to pay on goods that they knew everyone had to

buy at a time when no one could do without it…..they saw a moment and they

collaborated with big government to get their way to the distinct disadvantage of

the men and women of the colonies……it was the final straw….the people had had

enough…..in the dark of night on December 16 th , 1773, a group calling itself the

Sons of Liberty gathered at Boston Harbor, many of them disguised as native

Americans, they boarded ships owned by the East India Company that had recently

sailed into port and threw an entire shipment of tea into the harbor….it became

known as the Boston Tea Party…..a few days later, in Philadelphia, local citizens

refused to let the East India Company unload another cargo of tea and sent them

packing back to England…..it was “taxation without representation”, but it was

more than that….it was unequal treatment under the law…..citizens had a need for

something, government saw the need, and made the need more expensive just to

fund government…..while at the same time granting special tax favors to the

friends of government…..on one side was a true tax, and it was a burden, but on

the other side was taxation by other means when one part of the economy was

given special favors and leaving the other part of the economy to deal with the

results…..when government skews a market to get its way it has really just created

a taxation by other means…..the British Government in the 1770’s knew what

many in government know now…..that taxes can be to simply fund essential

services….but they can also be used to punish, to regulate, and to create new

behaviors……and the most epic version of taxation by other means in today’s

world happened on a scale never before seen as the Biden Administration worked

to change our economy into what many call “The Green New Deal”……I’ve often

referred to it as the Green New Steal because the vast majority of the regulatory

burdens, tax free subsidies, special favors to green companies, and penalties for

traditional energy sector companies and products was literally taking money out of

our pockets on a daily basis…..

The Biden Administration new regulatory order tried to force yet another

emissions standard on vehicles powered by combustion engines…..so the cost of

automobiles would go up even though they know that cars are essential to daily life

in today’s America….. everything from hot water heaters, ovens and stoves, air

conditioning systems, light bulbs, and ceiling fans, were all given new green

energy compliance standards…..and because they are more tightly regulated they

cost more to the consumer who everyone knows has to have those products as a

part of their daily lives in the 21 st century…..what we were seeing in the green

energy regulatory frenzy was taxation by another means….Companies that make

the products that we depend on had no choice but to comply or face being fined, or

worse yet, put out of business……the Biden government was desperate to shape

our behavior, to punish our noncompliance, and to model society in such a way

that their ideology became our reality and to do so they taxed us…..taxed us by

regulation…..but then there are the special friends of government….the modern

day versions of the East India Company…..green sector companies enjoyed

massive government subsidies to keep them afloat and give them the advantage

over their competition that they never would have had in a free

market…..companies like the electric bus manufacturer Proterra hired good

lobbyists, sucked down millions in tax payer dollars, enjoyed massive tax

exemptions, created buses that cities bought with government grants, and then filed

for bankruptcy when their products become known as unreliable…..

This past election cycle the people spoke loudly and clearly…..the repeal of the

Green New Steal was needed…..government has an insatiable appetite for your

money….and if it can’t be gained through taxation then they will tax you by other

means….big government activists will continue to regulate your behavior to make

you pay out-of-pocket for things you don’t want, while taxing the things that you

do want…..we basically threw electric buses and into the harbor…..

Taxation by other means…..it’s real…..

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!