CARR TAX

COULD IGNITE

TEA PARTY IN

MONTGOMERY

COUNTY AND

STATEWIDE

Should We Boycott Safeway for Supporting

A Grocery Tax on Every Bagful of Groceries?

I believe Delegate Al Carr's proposed 5 cent-per-bag grocery tax will spawn a Tea Party movement in Montgomery County, and across this state. It will be a Tea Party beyond the official Tea Party groups - although the formal groups will surely have a record boost in membership.

But this issue cuts across many partisan and political boundaries. This tax is an assault on freedom, a meddlesome intrusion of Big Government into the simple transaction of buying food at the local grocery store, and a highway robbery theft from the pockets of working families across the county and state.

We had the Madaleno 6% internet tax proposal, and the Floreen $250 parking tax proposal. And now we have the Carr Tax proposal. Most residents of Montgomery County are unaware this is even being proposed. That's what happened in D.C., and then it was too late.

Big Government is again punishing you, the taxpayer, to gain the income it desperately needs to grow ever-larger and satisfy the ferocious appetite of the special interests and developers who brought it to power. It's going beyond human decency, and taxing groceries, which have been exempted from most sales tax formulas for years. That's because even the poorest among us must eat.

And that's another important point: what makes the Carr Tax so regressive, punitive, draconian, and gratuitous is the fact that Carr and Co. know that you must buy groceries. You need bags to carry those groceries in. This is exactly the same as another Big Government scheme: something that the Powers-that-Be such as "COG" and other groups like to call "congestion pricing."

As you know, that is the fantasy concept that you will be charged a higher road toll (when it is immoral to charge a toll for roads you already paid for!) or Metro fare during "peak travel times."

Those wise and superior souls who make these decisions for you have claimed that this will force you, a simple-minded fool to their minds, to "change" your "behavior," and that will magically and mysteriously get traffic off the roads during those "peak times."

Of course, not being a simple-minded fool, you know that this is a preposterous and misleading front to vacuum more money out of your wallet. That's because even simple-minded fools know that 90%+ of working people MUST travel during peak times. That's the schedule set up by society, and that's why we have this thing called rush hour.

So politicians pass a tax they KNOW you will have to pay because you can't change the hour your workday starts (unless you've got one of those plum jobs). And they do it under the guise of "the environment."

It's outrageous.

But I am confident that this latest such tax will galvanize the taxpayers of Montgomery County like never before. Are we going to just quietly take another beating at the hands of Big Government? Or are we going to hold every last delegate and senator who votes for the Carr Tax accountable at the polls this September and November?

I'm confident there are Democrats as well as Republicans who can run for office, and who sincerely oppose this neverending stream of flat, regressive taxes and fees on the working people of Montgomery County.

Finally, I think it is quite disturbing to hear that a Safeway representative is endorsing the Carr Tax Grocery Tax. What is Safeway's opinion of you, its loyal customer? Why would Safeway - unless this representative misspoke - get involved in a scorching hot potato local politics issue like a grocery tax? Is that a winning message to customers? You're against us too? You want your customers to pay a tax-per-bag of groceries (never mind that that might cause shoppers to buy less)?

Whatever the reason is, we have a wealth of options here in Montgomery County when it comes to groceries. Giant, Food Lion, Whole Foods, Weis Markets, Wal-Mart, etc. And many smaller, independent grocers and convenience stores.

So think about it. Maybe you should shop somewhere else until the fate of the Carr Tax is decided. And keep monitoring the story, to find out if any other grocery chain joins Safeway in supporting the Carr Tax. Visit my website, www.RobertDyer.net, and use the email link there to get on my mailing list as we crusade to change Montgomery County for the better. To transform our government into one that serves the people, not the other way around.

Support the grocers who support you.

And vote out the politicians who vote for the Carr Tax. They believe that you serve the government, when the original Patriots who founded this country believed it should be the other way around.