The tax man cometh, and he's wearing a disguise

We have seen over the last four years the federal government suing states. The feds have sued Arizona, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Florida among others. Of course we have seen the feds sue companies; Boeing, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are just a few. But not many people have heard about the latest list of federal “enforcement actions” the Federal government suing cities. In this case of Federal government expansion of jurisdiction is to punish cites, and by extension the tax payers, for violations of recently changed EPA rules about waste water run-off.  

Most city sewer systems have some safety system to dump waste into water ways to prevent backups into citizen’s basements. But now the EPA has mandated city’s sewer systems can only have four discharges a year.

·         Does the EPA take into consideration how much rain a city gets? . . . . . . . . Nope

·         Does it consider how much a city discharges in one instant? . . . . . . .Nope

One gallon or a million gallons, it still counts as one discharge.  The best thing for the government is that no Congressional oversight is required; just more bureaucratic rule making that is a hallmark of this administration.

From a list of 227 violators identified by the EPA there has been 25 cities fined 21 billion dollars in the last four years and if Obama is reelected you can be sure the EPA will vigorously pursue these supposed law braking municipalities. 

It’s not that American cities have not made extensive efforts to combat the problem of waste being discharged into waterways during heavy rains. For years cities have developed rain gardens, catch basins and other “green” solutions to control rain water run-off. These are lower cost solutions than the federal mandate of rebuilding complete city sewer systems.  

The Confederation of Mayors insists they are making progress and the EPA vendetta can’t be justified by science. Cities are spending twice what they were 25 years ago on controlling discharge and still being forced to spend more and more to make smaller and smaller gains. It will take more than 300 billion dollars to make upgrades to meet expanding EPA regulations. Forcing cities to accelerate upgrades on their systems will mean new bond issues and increased water rates; the mayor of Lima Ohio testified to Congress that the new rules will increase annual sewer bills for city residents which averaged $330 a year to $ 850 a year.

A recent Wall Street Journal article labeled this EPA overreach the “The Obama Storm Tax”.  I am sure the administration would insist this was not a tax, just like the “fine” for not purchasing health insurance is not a tax, and the 3% fee on sales of medical equipment manufactures is not a tax. I guess you can make the claim you have not increased taxes on the middle class when nothing the federal government does that takes money out of the citizens pocket is actually called a tax.

To me it is not surprising that a government that already borrows 40% of every dollar it spends it will find new and inventive ways to separate the citizens from their money – you from YOUR money. Obama will tell you he only is going to increase taxes on the very wealthy but if you spend ten minutes looking at the amount of money available from that segment of the population compared to Obama’s 16 trillion dollar federal debt, you will realize all their money is NOT going to cover the check Obama is writing and as soon as he is done with the “wealthy”, once again the tax man WILL cometh and he will be coming for you.