(H/T – Van Helsing)
Tom Petri is an original co-sponsor to an abomination of an act called the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act of 2009, authored by Earl Blumenauer (D, or is that Moonbat-Oregon). According to the short summary provided by Blumenauer, the various local units of government can’t come up with $534 billion in “needed” drinking water/wastewater infrastructure improvements over the next 20 years without raising taxes incredibly on the locals. So, what’s Blumenauer’s and Petri’s solution? Raise $534 billion in federal taxes over 20 years (or $26.7 billion per year) on those same locals! The dirty details:
- A 4-cent-a-bottle tax on water-based beverages because, as the summary says, they “rely on drinking water as their major input and result in both increased flows and increased waste in our waters.” Surprisingly, alcoholic beverages, the number one cause of public urination, are not included in this tax. Beverages made from concentrate also escape the tax man.
- A 3% excise tax on toilet paper, soap, detergent, toothpaste, perfume, sunblock, shaving cream, hairspray, water softener, and cooking oil because they all end up in the water. That’s right, cooking oil is on the list despite every homeowner knowing that simply dumping the oil down the drain only clogs it. Guess Petri hates fish frys.
Oh, and don’t think you can make your own soap and escape the tax man like “Big Alcohol” and “Big Juice”. They’ll tax you on the estimated retail value of your homemade soap.
- A 0.5% excise tax on pharmaceutical products because people are too stupid to not throw their pills in the toilet and because Big Pharma is an easy target, but mostly because Big Pharma is an easy target.
- A 0.15% tax on corporate profits over $4 million because they use water too and because it’s just soooo unfair that the Superfund tax sunsetted, but mostly because the Superfund tax sunsetted.
Is there nobody in east-central Wisconsin that will challenge Petri?
