Who Likes Paying Taxes? Raise Your Hand.
No one likes paying taxes. I certainly don’t.
I don’t like handing over my hard earned money to pay for billions in foreign aid to countries that hate us and billions and billions for wars in which we have no business.
I especially don’t like handing over my hard earned money to pay debt service for trillions and trillions in national debt that we will never pay off and to which our kids and grandkids will continue to be enslaved.
I hate paying for the pensions and salaries of career politicians and I hate paying for the trough that lobbyists and lawyers and accountants slurp at in Babylon D.C. and I hate paying for the millions and millions of illegal immigrants flooding across our border while our own people suffer. I could go on and on and on.
But I will take my responsibility seriously to pay for the Great Falls streets I drive on every day, the fresh water in my faucet every day, the neighborhoods free of raw sewage and storm water flowing through the streets.
For the first responders who put their lives on the line in Great Falls every day. For our local courts and corrections people.
For all the stuff that I can see and touch – and actually use and enjoy every day. Services performed for us by people you and I know personally and see every day at the grocery store or local pub.
The local social contract we all enter into to pay for modern, adequate local services and the necessities of life isn’t something we should take lightly or neglect.
Let’s not confuse the taxes we pay for federal studies on the mating habits of snails with the taxes we pay for a safe, clean, modern city.
Let’s try to keep a perspective and understand the clear difference between the taxes we pay that seem to disappear down the black hole of the gargantuan federal government with no accountability and the taxes we pay for our local services where we can expect to see immediate and direct results and accountability.
One last thing – we need to demand that our state legislature and governor take action on state tax reform.
The only option for much needed city, county, and school district funding is property taxes via voter approved levies. That has to change. We need to spread the burden out more evenly somehow and stop depending on property owned by local businesses and homeowners for everything.