2008
Week 2
January 19, 2008

Hi

The excitement this week was the attempt to repeal our motorcycle helmet requirement. Bikers came within two votes of doing it. Which is way too many votes on a very expensive way to use up taxes. The new legislators accounted for 18 of the 23 votes. (Please note that most adult bikers are good drivers and responsible.... and choose to wear helmets.)

Quite aside from death, misery and family grief, I took up the case of a permanent brain injury in lifetime resident care. One will cost Nebr. over $10 million. If one a year gets his brains sloshed without a helmet, the total per year cost within 15 years will be over $25 million. That includes families left stranded, workers no longer paying taxes, and on and on. What are we buying? ‘Air in the Hair,’ which were our daughter's words, when she was a biker, to describe the free feeling some touted. Thanks, Jo. Made every paper.

Tax thoughts make us weird. The governor opposes increasing the gas tax, which taxes the people who drive the roads, which are in long term trouble. He favors a fund without “tax” in its name. Well, there is one sure thing about public money. It is all from taxes, whether tax is named or not.

A lawsuit against Nebr. by a few landowners near the Republican River provides a lesson on tax law. They protest that a property tax by the water resources district was authorized by the legislature, and therefore is a state property tax. So illegal.

Hello. Educating our kids is a state responsibility (like managing water). We create school districts to do the job and they can tax. Legally.

A bill to limit attorney fees for school districts produced an odd phrase: low bid attorney. Is that an oxymoron?

I have a bill adding assisted living to the list of nursing care facilities which are exempt from sales tax. Small matter, rather obvious. However, we had some fun with a phrase from the statute which relates to “nonprofit organizations created for exclusively religious purposes.” “Exclusively” is a technical legal term, in all church applications for tax exempt status, and means you cannot apply for a group that is 2/3 church and 1/3 business. Authorities check on operations every year, to see if it is a real church.

Senator Chambers, to have fun and to tweak religious noses, sought to amend by adding two words so it would read “created AND OPERATED for exclusively religious purposes.” A Catholic asked if a parochial school is exclusively religious. Someone else, a pancake feed. Someone else, Bingo. The answer to all, in the law, is “Yes” if it is done for the benefit of the church. No profit making allowed. I have dealt with that many times, but even lawyers on the floor were surprised and confused.

Next to it was nonprofit hospitals. From behind me I heard the question about Creighton Hospital, which is owned by a for-profit group. If Senator Chambers got a whiff of that conversation we would have meltdown, big time, for he will do anything to embarrass that school. I was on the mike often, keeping my voice quiet and sure, taking time, knowing we were skating about two inches away from chaos. Finally got the quiet word that an attorney had checked with the hospital. It pays taxes. I started breathing again. All, remember, in a bill so small most would not notice it.

The national news this week is that our nation is in economic trouble. The solution, it seems, is for us to spend more. Remember the request to us from the president after 9/11, to help us fight the new onslaught of terrorism? Go shopping.

It fits our economic philosophy, but the real world deserves more serious thought. I recommend going to www.storyofstuff.com and watching the cartoon video which opens with that site. The video is 20 minutes long, but it is fun and well done. The future of our planet is worth taking a break for thinking. I was so impressed I watched it twice.

Another national item is so obviously bad I hate to waste words commenting. But one presidential candidate is evidently getting some mileage from promises to give our country “God's Constitution.” Poor God. God will have no control over the product of politicians' ambitions, imagination and disconnected opinions, but will be credited (accused?) of creating the end product. Shameful pandering to emotions.

Folks, we are better than that.

Lowen