Jefferson was the first limousine liberal

“If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation.” —Rush Limbaugh

I often lament the state of taxation in this country. Depending on your political orientation, you probably are of the opinion that: A) Only you pay your fair share of taxes, and everyone else is a fat cat abusing tax “loopholes,” or B) You hate taxes and don’t begrudge anyone with the wherewithall to legitimately avoid paying what isn’t required. Also, let’s recognize that if you consider yourself part of the poor and downtrodden who shouldn’t pay taxes, recall that the tax code is partially written by politicians who claim to represent the poor and downtrodden. (This is called “job security” for Democrat politicians.)

On a purely side note regarding more the irresponsible use of taxes than taxation itself: When the Democratic presidential candidates were all busy on the recent CNN presidential debates hyperextending their nut-case reasons why they never sent their own kids to public school, John Edwards gets non-hypocrisy credit for actually sending his kids to public school. Maybe if these self-righteous champions could find a way to send their own kids to public school, they’d be able to find reasons to fix it.

Of course this would be in keeping with the Democrats’ favorite Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the country’s first limousine liberal—at least, in philosophy.

Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, both appear on currency. Appropriately, perhaps, Hamilton is on the $10 bill, and Jefferson is on the nickel.

What is little known about Hamilton—and perhaps the reason he appears on the $10 bill—is that he led the creation of the country’s national banking system. An ardent federalist, he lost the war of politics against Jefferson, who at the time, painted himself an ardent supporter of the poor and downtrodden. What is ironic about all of this is that Hamilton was a self-made man. Born into poverty in the British West Indies, he immigrated to the country. Contrast that with Jefferson, who was born into wealth and privilege.

But back to taxes.

There is a group of citizenry in Incline Village and Crystal Bay called the Village League to Save Incline Assets, Inc. It is the result of citizens rising up and organizing to challenge the powers that be. If you read “Incline Village” and think, “Oh. Rich white people rising up,” you can probably stop reading now. (Instead, see CNN’s Democratic presidential debates and perhaps the biographies of Jefferson and Hamilton.)

Rather than picking up that remote, though, allow me to offer a lesson in more recent history. In 2002, property owners from Incline Village and Crystal Bay apparently received their property assessments (otherwise known as taxes, for those who actually pay them) from the Washoe County Assessor. In some cases—according to the league—increases were as high as 375 percent in one year.

The group went through the various degrees of administrative appeals before the whole thing ended up in the court system.

The latest round indicates that the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled that some 9,000 taxpayers could be eligible for tax refunds dating back to the 2002-2003 fiscal year. According to news reports, that’s about $70 million.

The reasons behind the court’s decision seem clear. To wit: [T]he assessor’s office resulted in widely disparate, unequal and non-uniform valuations.

And that perhaps brings us back to Limbaugh’s observation.