July 4, 2019 Page 3
Gas Tax Hike Sparks Rebellion
Ahead of Independence Day
By Rob McCarthy
It’s always something, isn’t it? And by
something, I am talking about taxes. This week,
the state-imposed tax that Californians pay
at the pump jumped another nickel. Friends
on social media were not happy about it,
considering how a gallon of unleaded fuel
already cost $3.75 per gallon and summer
prices were heading higher as of last week.
The tax increase was small, yet the reaction
on social media and comments online
were loud and angry. Residents unloaded on
Sacramento politicians, while people who’ve
left the state because of what they consider
overtaxation and regulation gloated about
$2.99-per-gallon prices for gas next door in
Arizona and close by in Utah.
The criticism was directed at Gov. Gavin
Newsom, too, though it was the former
Gov. Jerry Brown who cut the road tax deal
with lawmakers. The lieutenant governor for
two terms under Brown, Newsom in 2018
defeated Republican candidate John Cox in
the general election. Cox campaigned against
the tax-for-roads package that November.
California voters had a chance to undo the
gas tax last year, but left it intact. Proposition
6, which took aim at Brown’s transportation
Hawthorne Happenings
News for the City of Good
Neighbors from an Old Guy
declared they’d seen enough. The British
ruler refused to permit early Americans to
trade with other nations, creating a captive
audience for England. Thomas Jefferson
spending plan financed through higher
drafted the Declaration of Independence
vehicle registration fees and fuel taxes, was
document, which Congress approved on July
defeated. So, the long-range plan to fix roads
4, 1776, and included the king’s taxes and
and improve mass transit using $5 billion per
restrictive trade policies among the laundry
year in new taxes continues.
list of grievances that Americans used to
The 5.6-cent increase on July 1 made
demand self-rule.
California’s tax rate on gasoline tops in the
After declaring, “We hold these truths to be
nation, according to published reports. And,
self-evident, that all men are created equal,
the reminder to retailers about the second
that they are endowed by their Creator with
increase in the tax coincided with the start
certain unalienable Rights, that among these
of Independence Day. The news sparked the
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,”
minor rebellion over the “tax-and-spend”
Jefferson inserted into the historic text two
mentality of Democrats who control both
hot-button issues of his day, which remain
chambers in Sacramento. Gas pricing in California
controversial 243 years later. “For cutting off
is confusing, partly because of taxes.
our Trade with all parts of the world. For
Robert McClelland, a think tank staff
imposing Taxes on us without our Consent,”
member at the Tax Policy Center, suggested
the declaration says. The latter issue, known
the state do better at explaining to drivers
as taxation without representation, has been
how a gallon of gasoline is taxed. “Perhaps
addressed over the nation’s history by the
if California could simplify its gas tax regime,
civil rights-era Voting Rights Act of 1965.
its residents would realize what they are paying
The other concern -- creating tension over
and for what. This could make the levies
U.S. trade policy -- has returned with the White
less unpopular,” he wrote last November.
House’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico
Every gallon of unleaded carries a 2.25
and Canada. President Trump and his trade
percent sales tax and an additional 47.3-cent
representative Robert Lighthizer placed a 10
excise tax. Gasoline sold in the state is reformulated
percent import tariff on Chinese goods and
to reduce smog-forming emissions,
products late last year. The administration in
which raises the price by about 10 cents per
mid-June raised tariffs to 25 percent in an
gallon, according to figures McClelland cited.
attempt to pressure Chinese trade negotiators
Other environmental regulations make
to agree to buy more U.S. products and take
fuel more expensive for Californians, he
swift action to protect the intellectual property
concedes. A lower-carbon fuel standard
rights of U.S. companies.
approved in 2010 requires producers of
The trade talks focused on protecting U.S.
gasoline and other petroleum-based fuels to
drug patents and cellphone technologies
gradually reduce the “carbon intensity” of
continue. The tariff war has hurt farmers and
their products each year through 2020. That
manufacturers here in the South Bay who
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rely on parts and components made in China. price of gasoline, he said. A cap-and-trade
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system to limited greenhouse gas emissions
was extended to fuel producers four years
ago, adding another 9 cents to the per-gallon
price of fuels.
As of this week, the state is collecting 46.7
cents per gallon on unleaded and premium
blends. Drivers and fleet owners who run
diesel-engine cars and trucks are paying. The
diesel fuel tax rate nearly doubled to 67 cents
per gallon under Brown’s road-repair plan.
“California’s bewildering array of frequently
changing explicit and implicit taxes has made
it very difficult for people to understand how
much they are paying in taxes when they
purchase gasoline, even though gasoline prices
are among the most well-known prices for
consumers,” McClelland said.
Complaining about taxes and government
policy is an American tradition. Taxes and
trade were the issues that fueled the rebellion
against England that the nation celebrates
every July 4th. King George III imposed
a stamp tax on any official deed or document
a decade before the fed-up colonists
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Named Norb Huber
Oh, Say Can You See
The story of our
national anthem
I thought that this was a perfect story
for the 4th of July week. This story was written
by Tricia Drevets of Grants Pass, Oregon. Let
us all enjoy our Independence Day.
Its familiar opening chords bring us to our
feet at the start of sporting events throughout
the country. During the Olympics, we watch
our nation’s top athletes proudly stand on podiums
as it is being played in crowded arenas.
We’ve heard its notoriously difficult notes
sung – sometimes successfully and sometimes
not -- by celebrities, by choral groups and by
children. You are sure to hear it accompanying
firework displays this Fourth of July.
But what is the story behind “The Star-
Spangled Banner”? Let’s find out.
American lawyer Francis Scott Key, age 35,
was aboard a British ship in the Chesapeake Bay
on the rainy night of Sept. 13, 1814, during the
War of 1812. This second war between the young
United States and Great Britain has taken an
ugly turn just weeks before when the British had
attacked Washington, D.C., burning the Capitol,
the Library of Congress and the White House.
Key had boarded an enemy ship in hopes of
negotiating the release of a friend, Dr. William
Beanes, who had been taken prisoner. Although
Key was successful in his legal efforts, his
successful departure was thwarted when he
and his companions overheard British plans
to attack the city of Baltimore that night. Not
wanting the Americans to tip off their compatriots,
British officers prevented the men from
returning to shore.
Key had to watch helplessly while British
warships pounded Fort McHenry, which was
just eight miles away in Baltimore Harbor,
with shells and rockets for 25 hours without a
break in the action. However, at daybreak, Key
was struck by the inspiring sight of a tattered
but clearly still flying American flag atop Fort
McHenry. He scribbled down a poem, originally
titled “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” that
included these now famous words:
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s
last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through
the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly
streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting
in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag
was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of
the brave?
Key’s poem was printed in newspapers
throughout the country, and people liked
it so much that they set to the music of
a popular English drinking song called
“To Anacreon in Heaven” written by
John Stafford Smith. People soon adopted
the phrase “star spangled banner”
from the next to last line of the poem
as its title, and it became a standard patriotic
tune of the 19th century. Key, who was born
on August 1, 1779 in Frederick County (now
Carroll County), Maryland, continued his law
career and was later appointed U.S. attorney for
the District of Columbia. He died of pleurisy
in 1843. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson
proclaimed that “The Star-Spangled Banner”
should be played at official events across the
nation. The Unites States officially adopted the
song as its national anthem on March 3, 1931.
Today, the flag that flew over Fort McHenry
is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution’s
Museum of American History in Washington,
D.C. The fragile banner underwent an extensive
cleaning and restoration process beginning in
1999, and in 2008 it became the centerpiece
of a state-of-the-art gallery at the Smithsonian.
Historians, curators, organic scientists and
engineers combined efforts in a special conservation
lab designed just for the famous flag.
Some of the detailed work included snipping
1.7 million stitches in order to remove a linen
backing that had been added to the flag in 1914,
lifting debris from the flag using cosmetic
sponges and brushing it with an acetone-water
solution to remove dirt embedded in its fibers.
The experts then added a sheer polyester backing
to help support the tattered flag.
The goal of the project was never to make the
flag look like it did before the bombardment,
Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, a lead conservator
for the project, told Smithsonian Magazine,
but to extend its lifetime. “We didn’t want
to change any of the history written on the
artifact by stains and soil,” she said. “Those
marks tell the flag’s story.”
So now that you know a little about the
history of the song and the flag, you may be
wondering why “The Star-Spangled Banner”
is so difficult to sing that even trained singers
sometimes turn down offers to perform
it. Basically, it is because of its wide range.
Many popular performers are not comfortable
singing outside a range of a single octave,
and the range of the anthem is more than an
octave and a half.
Some anthem singers sing in Bb major
in order to be able to reach the high notes.
In a video from Smithsonian Folkways, for
example, noted American folk singer, tells
his audience to join in on singing “The Star-
Spangled Banner” after assuring them that he
is using “a very, very low key, so everybody
can sing it.”
Anthem singers frequently get tripped up
by the words as well. Some even have taken
See Gas Tax, page 4
See Hawthorne Happenings, page 4