Thousands rally in support of drilling

I would view demonstrations such as this as a healthy sign that the public is going to protect itself from the political class. More than 2,500 gas industry employees rallied in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania yesterday to promote natural gas drilling and oppose a creeping bipartisan effort to impose a severance or extraction tax on natural gas. Supposedly the the revenue from the proposed tax would be used to fund education as if the education sector is starved. Nationally the US spends more per student than any country in the world and receives extremely modest benefits for its money. A tax is a tax, is a tax and if one wants less of a product then tax it. Politicians have no right to expect the companies, land owners, and employees in one industry to pay for a public benefit but this minority will indeed pay the tax either in reduced drilling and employment or lower profits, wages, and lease monies.
Within a few years natural gas will be exported from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. If anything the development of gas and oil extraction industries should be subsidized rather than taxed. Expect John Kasich and Ohio's political class to soon try to the same ploy. After the rich and the poor take their cuts there is little left for the middle class that does the dirty and sometimes dangerous work.