Death and Taxes
Well now, its trim notice time and I saw on the Seminole Heights blog quite the uproar over this years taxes. This is a case of a system that is totally broken. Some of my neighbors are paying a few hundred dollars a year while new arrivals are paying near 4000 dollars, for comparable houses just because they came here recently. Something has to give, the fella paying a couple hundred bucks is getting the same level of service from the city that the new arrival is. The only exception might be that the old timer doesn't have any kids going into the school system but educatin the youth is an obligation for all of us so I don't mind that too much. The other problem I see is that the city has to be rakin it in, and yet none of the money seems to be going to anything other than pork. I haven't seen better police or fire responses, the roads certainly are getting worse not better around my area. The bus system still sucks, no train in sight, Riverwalk, well it's a nice idea, but it's not really going anywhere so far. I think the recent rash of folks getting dinged for 50 year old fireplaces and such is just a lazy way of trying to milk a few more bucks., instead of coming up with a fair and legal way to normalize the tax base. Save our homes is a bit outmoded, but we still need some protections for those of us who have been here awhile. As for the death part of the headline, anyone else here think that JonBenet Ramsey killer reminds you of Kevin Spacey in Seven?
New feature, Grumpmeter is level 4 now.
New feature, Grumpmeter is level 4 now.
posted by Grumpy at 8/18/2006 11:28:00 AM
2 Comments:
Grumpy, you touched on a real pet peeve of mine; paying taxes to send someone else's kids to school. Yes, I do believe that we all need to support the school system with our tax dollars, but now let's do it in a fair way. I have no kids and never will, so why should I pay at the same rate as somebody with 10 kids? I say, establish a set minimum rate (what I would pay) and then set a per child rate that is in addition to the set minimum rate. Picking a figure out of the air, say $100.00 per child; if you have two kids, you pay an extra $200.00, etc., etc. This would be a fair and equitable way to pay for public education, and may even make people think twice before cranking out kids like litters of pups.
I have to admit, I didn't clarify as much as I probably should have, I agree that we all shouldn't have to be burdened by folks poppin out youngins left and right, but if only folks who had kids were paying for schools we'd have a bunch of undereducated hoodlums running around, even worse than we have now, at the same time, I agree, we all shouldn't have to pay the same amount, some pro rata per kid fee would be better with a lower flat fee that everyone pays.
Post a Comment
<< Home