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.
I don’t mind paying taxes for schools, IF it goes towards educating children without racial bigotry, political bias, inappropriate sex education, and other things that boogle young innocent minds. I do have heartburn with increasing taxes to boost income to the hierarchy of the school administration, while bypassing raises to the teachers, or not buying books and/or equipment needed for their classrooms.
I don’t have a problem paying taxes to help fix our infrastructure, as long as it doesn’t go to the lowest bidder who has to comeback time after time after time to redo, or fix ongoing problems due to their inadequacy.
I wonder what Rick’s thoughts and musings were about things like this BEFORE he became a politician and became part of government. He starts out sounding like all of us, then switches to something like, “Shut your piehole and pay your taxes.” In his current position (at least until this election) he may want to make Great Falls more inviting to get people to move here. As one who moved here 10 years ago and moved my business here as well, I have to say Great Falls was more inviting then vs today. Rents were lower and doable for those not in the upper class structure. Prices for goods and services were doable as well. What has changed? Some might say the pandemic, but look closer. How many levies for this, that and whatnot have passed? More than a handful? More to come? Is the cost of living here as good as it was 10 or maybe even 5 years ago? There is a saying about the best is yet to come. I say not so fast. With the possibility of 2 levies (or should I say taxes) being imposed this year, with the accompying higher rents and prices for goods and service, how is that best? According to the definition of levy, we find this: impose (a tax, fee, or fine). “a new tax could be levied on industry to pay for cleaning up contaminated land. Or this: an act of levying a tax, fee, or fine. “union members were hit with a 2 percent levy on all pay” Also : Similar: tax tariff, toll, excise. Maybe this was left out of a high school economics class, but that does not change what this really is. Remember this also, not just today but when we are asked to raise taxes on ourselves: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help. ” And Benjamin Franklin: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Keith – you could make your points much more credibly if you didn’t engage in absurd, false accusations. I have NEVER said anything even close to “Shut your piehole and pay your taxes.” You’re better than this.
Rick – if you can take your commissioner hat off and think like a constituent, you might see what I meant. I started out with wondering what your thoughts or ideas were before you became a part of government. Also, I said “sounding like and then switching”. Note – sounded like. No inference of actually saying what is in quotes. So briefly, paying taxes is not what most people live to do. Wasn’t the Revolution in 1775 started because of unfair taxation by the Crown? Then you pose a scenario where paying taxes would be, or is acceptable. There is a saying down South. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You can dress up or justify any tax to sound good, but a tax, is still a tax. How about instead, say paring down the budget to find money that can be used instead of making us bear the burden over and over? Also, another quote by the late great President Ronald Reagan. “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”. So if one is not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
I call BS on your absurd comments. I have never said anything that has even come close to “something like” “shut your pie hole and pay your taxes”. That is an ignorant and false statement, and you should know better.
I don’t wear Commission hats sometimes and citizen hats other times and my principles do not change based on an elected office I may or may not hold. Your comments are insulting and ignorant.
I’ve lived, volunteered and served in this community for much longer than your short tenure here, probably longer than you’ve been alive.
I raised my kids and grandkids here and I pay the exact same local taxes that everyone else does.
You sound phony and contrived when you presume to lecture me about fiscal conservatism or the principles on which our Republic was founded.
Rick – Since you said you have been doing what you are doing “probably” longer than I’ve been alive, I can say that I “probably” interpreted your post as trying to talk whoever read it into finding it okay to pay a tax. Since you say you did not say that, even though I am writing as a thought process and in no way saying you said it. The quotation marks were placed as a thought process, as in using it like a common saying such as “I will be here tomorrow as long as the Good Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise.” (Comes from spending 3 years in the South.) And by the way – I am older than you.