Columns

Each year, Tax Day is an unpleasant reality check on how complicated and outdated our tax code has become. Tax reform is next on our legislative agenda, and we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lessen the burden on American families and businesses.

When Washington last undertook comprehensive tax reform, Ronald Reagan was president, the average price of a new home in the U.S. was $111,900, and a gallon of gas cost 89 cents. Much has changed in our country since 1986, but our tax code has only become more complicated.

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“I did not take this job to perpetuate myself in politics but to make the hard and firm decisions that need to be made to make Nebraska progress.” -- Nebraska Governor Norbert Tiemann, 3-13-67.

I will admit that Norbert Tiemann is my hero. I wasn’t old enough to vote for him (missed it by a year and 6 weeks back when you had to be 21 to vote), but I sure would have. I liked what he had to say.

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By Tory Duncan

Some times during the course of a week, when I finally sit down to pen the Bull there becomes thoughts that I almost would rather just pass on, a week now and then, from writing this column.

This week is one of them. A great deal of thoughts and personal views have come and gone, some of which would turn heads for the good and not so good, other thoughts this week just wouldn’t matter.

So, I turn to an easy going thought for the week, that being the end of the school year.

With just over a month to go before the three graduating classes of seniors take the step into the next stages of their lives, it draws me back to those final weeks of my senior year in high school...1983.

I recall some of our classmates constantly saying they just can’t wait to be done and move on.

By Ashley Swanson

When I first had my sip of that black, bitter liquid steaming out of that white mug, I was really little. I was sitting with my grandpa, dad and uncle and was told that if I was going to sit up at the big table with the guys, I had to drink coffee.

Well....fast forward about an hour or two and I distinctly remember taking a sip and deciding it was disgusting as my cup turned cold. I was later excused from the “big table.”

Moving forward, I rarely ever had coffee growing up, and if I did, it was super sweet and was more a latte (lots of sweetner and cool whip) than actual coffee.

However, my brother and I did take turns brewing a pot of coffee for our dad each morning so we could fill his thermos before he headed off to work...I loved the smell of coffee back then, and only the smell.

By Tory Duncan

With the end of the school year quickly approaching, it turns my thoughts toward spring weather, activities of a different sort, with the return of community celebrations and activities taking place outside.

Track and golf athletes may not be happy with the start of their respective seasons, with cool (even cold) temperatures and rain plaguing the start of the spring sports season, but we all know that it will soon change to much better weather to better enjoy a track meet, or take in a round of golf.

Several communities have begun planning their summer community festivals, with talks going on throughout the county for the summer activities.

Baseball season...well, practice anyway...is well underway. Ag producers are working diligently to prepare acres and acres of ground for the pending planting season, leading us into the growing season.

By Ozenbaugh

As I write this on Sunday, March 26, I'll share a Postal tidbit that today is the tenth anniversary of the Forever stamp. Forever Stamps are first-class stamps that you can buy at the current first-class postage rate, and they remain valid even if that rate rises in the future. The design for the Forever Stamp, an image of the Liberty Bell, was unveiled by the U.S. Postal Service on March 26 in 2007. It officially went on sale on April 12, and sold for forty-one cents each. In the first year, the USPS sold more than six billion Forever stamps.

In the last ten years, the Forever stamp has changed prices eight times--from .41 in 2007, to .42 in 2008, to .44 in 2009. It then did not change until 2012, to .45, to .46 in 2013, and to .49 in 2014. It went down to.47 in 2016, and back to .49 in 2017.