In the vast expanse of America’s resource-rich states, an insidious form of legalized plunder thrives under the innocuous name of the “severance tax.” This is no mere fee for service or fair compensation for public goods. It is a punitive levy imposed by state governments on the extraction of oil, natural gas, coal, timber, and minerals—the very act of “severing” these resources from the earth.
This is a new tax to me. Why am I not surprised about it. If they could only think of a way to tax the air we breath.....