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Topic: letter to editor
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alicia
Administrator
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letter to editor |
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Posted on: 07/07/04 - 01:29:46 |
Before our Cookeville City Council raised property taxes, I submitted a letter to the editor of the local Herald-Citizen paper. It was designed to get people to call the councilmen before the vote. The newpaper didn't print it until July 4th, after the tax increase had already been approved. Below is the text of what got printed after the paper edited it to reflect past tense rather than future tense. I have another editorial ready to point out the $30,000 given to my opponents, and I'll submit it this week.
I went to get a web link to this one instead of pasting the text here, but it seems they don't archive the opinion section like they do the other sections of the web site. Oh, well...I've got my original and am starting a scrapbook. I think we should all keep scrapbooks to log our activism...wouldn't they make great displays for conventions & public outreach events?
Ok, so here it is:
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Editor,
I am principally opposed to corporate welfare, especially when it requires raising my Cookeville city property taxes to do it. Supporters of the idea can whitewash it with politically correct terms like "economic development" but we all know what it really is.
The Cookeville City Council has voted to raise our property taxes so they can give cash or property to wealthy corporations. Many city residents like myself are small business owners or employees. We're already here, taking big financial risks to employ ourselves and others, struggling to stay in business, and what do we get as a reward for it? They raise our taxes to hand the money to some other wealthy company who isn't willing to assume the same financial risk I've already accepted. And I do it without crying to the city council to take someone else's money and give it to me. Let these new companies pay their own way like I do.
Depending on which companies such tax money is given to, the council may even be taxing me to bring in competition for my own company. They may use my own money to try to drive me out of business.
If my company were to have financial trouble, I doubt the city would come bail me out to save the jobs of my employees, yet they're perfectly happy to hand money to a wealthy company who doesn't even need financial help. Why do some companies deserve special treatment?
And we're talking about buying jobs at a time when the county unemployment rate is only 3.6%. We're talking about raising taxes to buy jobs for people who aren't even looking for jobs!
Plans like this turn local property owners into schoolyard nerds, helpless victims of the bully that demands that we hand over our lunch money. I'm opposed to bullies on playgrounds, and I'm opposed to bullies on city councils or in wealthy corporations. Plans like this are why I vote Libertarian.
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iam4nota
Level 2
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letter to editor |
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Posted on: 07/07/04 - 08:44:50 |
Great letter, and great idea on the scrapbook. Archiving activism!
Pro libertate,
Ray
http://www.lptn.org/
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Pro libertate,
Ray Ledford
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