ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ARNOLD D. ST. CLAIR
IF THE FIRST duty of government is to do no harm and to protect the interest of the majority of those you represent, then you have failed miserably.
You have aided and abetted in the demise of the American middle class. You are protecting the interest of big business and the monied crowd - striving to incorporate yourselves into their ranks.
A given locality strips its lower middle class of income via regressive and repressive tax structures (on personal and real property, individual income, etc.) on the one hand, while handing out huge tax breaks to industry (corporate welfare) with the other hand. The downtrodden move to surrounding, less urban counties for relief, only to be met - waiting like vultures to get their meat hooks into us - by steadily rising tax rates at the new locale until, invariably, we are more oppressed than before.
Now, as interest rates fall, the real-estate tax bite becomes key in determining who can qualify for a mortgage loan.
If you allow this unending, unrelenting tax spiral to continue unabated, not only will urban support dwindle, but suburban and rural standards will also gradually decline. Lower-middle-income families struggle to make ends meet - to put food on the table - while a large chunk of our income is siphoned off for your grandiose schemes and overpriced projects.
We are overpaying public officials and administrators at all levels of government. (Two-for-one and 10-year full retirement plans come to mind.) You live the good life compared to us and we pay your salaries! You are not members of some royal family - you are public servants and, as such, should feel the pain of the people you serve.
The state of Virginia has set a goal to raise the annual salaries of our county sheriffs statewide to an average of $72,000. Some localities pay secondary-education gurus six-figure salaries. Get real! And to add insult to injury, we have a high-power developer in Northern Virginia (never elected to office by us) calling for a state tax increase - and our esteemed legislators are actually considering his proposal. Give us a break!
Meanwhile, tuition for higher education has skyrocketed. The average parent can no longer afford post-secondary education for his child. What happened to the inherent advantages of collective and centralized public schooling? What happened to the lottery proceeds that were supposed to alleviate this situation? State-supported colleges and universities should be tuition-free to in-state residents (such as they are in Georgia)!
In your headlong rush to become one of the elite, don't trample the very people you are charged with protecting.
Now may be the time to set our total collective tax burden to a practical level - say 25 percent (instead of the outrageous 65 percent hidden total we're now subjected to). If, in lean years, you can't balance your budgets - then do without - just as we must do, out here in the real world. Leave us enough of our income to live on!
We're being conned, manipulated and herded like sheep and, just like those faithful sheep, we line up and wait to be sheared. The American dream is now a nightmare. We're being raped, robbed and pillaged at all levels - betrayed and sold out by the very people whom we entrusted to mind the store!
Maybe we should make ``Violation of Public Trust'' a capital crime.
Arnold D. St. Clair of Hardy works in the communications department at Norfolk Southern Corp.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 linesby CNB