BY RUSSELL TURNER
MILK COW UNIVERSITY
Over the years I have used analogies concerning politics; the biggest source of information I rely upon is my experiences being raised on the family farm. When I was a child I had many chores that my parents assigned for me to do. One of the jobs I had was to milk the family milk cow. The process was pretty simple, first I had to feed the cow while I milked her then I would get a couple of buckets (one to sit on and the other one to collect the milk). After I positioned the bucket under the cow and proceeded to gently (I also found out if you are not gentle most cows will kick the fire out of you) grasp the cow’s teats and squeeze and pull them to get a stream of fresh cow’s milk. For a while the cow will produce a large quantity, but cows don’t have a never ending stream of milk; after she has given all she has, all of the squeezing and pulling will not produce any more milk. I believe that if more of our elected officials had milked cows when they were a child they would have a different attitude when it comes to dealing with budget shortfalls and taxation.
Every day the news is full of different agencies clamoring for more state revenues. Every one of them will try to make you feel as though the sky is falling if they don’t receive more money. They solution is to increase fees and sales taxes to get more money; in my opinion their timing is impeccable. One example is the Boren penny sales tax plan, another is HB2310 to increase county sales tax levy to 3.5%. For a little perspective under Oklahoma law a county can only impose 2% sales tax upon its citizens, if HB2310 passes the counties can impose 3.5% sales tax (a 75% tax hike).As just an everyday working person I have grown tired of the biased and one sided reporting of the main stream news media. While the media likes to highlight the plight of the government agencies, they ignore the plight of the countless energy sector workers, farmers and ranchers whose markets have collapsed. When the private sector workers are unemployed or underemployed they do not have the money to spend on the things they want. The car dealer won’t be able to sell them a new auto, the local restaurant sees a decline in their business, the waitress working in the restaurant may have her hours cut and more than likely will see a huge reduction in her tips.
Before a milk cow can produce milk she must be fed, before the taxpayer can pay more tax he must have an income. If anyone tries to be rough with the cow and continues jerking on her udder to get more milk, the cow has the ability to knock some sense into the one doing the milking. The voters have the ability to do the same thing to the current crop of tax and spend politicians. I speak from experience, this economic downturn is affecting all of us not just the government class. If more people had attended Milk Cow University they would have a little more understanding.
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