Carl Parker's archive

Recently, while watching television, I noticed a Geico insurance ad in which the speaker asked, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?” He reasoned that it did. This got me to thinking about the ever-present pledge of conservative members of the Texas Legislature about no new taxes. This question comes to my mind: If it’s not called a tax, is it a tax, even though it takes money out of taxpayers’ pockets?