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Show GRASSROOTS Local Government Is as Extravagant as National By Wright A. Patterson I WONDER if In your town, where-ever where-ever it may be, you are experiencing experi-encing as I am in my town, an ever-increasing tax burden, that Is hard to account for. It Is an increased in-creased burden that comes either in the form of an increased tax rate, an Increased valuation on real estate, or a new form of taxes. I recall the time, not so long ago, when the town gathered up the garbage from the town homes at no cost to the home owners. Then the city officials found they were overlooking bet. Some other town was charging charg-ing a special tax for such a service, serv-ice, and a tax of SO cents a month for each home was added i ih umini in mt a need . With o reason, I ws nicked for 4 material increase on both the county and town tax bills. Because of that, I am bowling, but f realize it it voting, not bowling that offers the real solution, solu-tion, and at the next county and town elections I, for one, will do the needed voting and register my protest about those tax increases. We do a lot of complaining about the increased taxes of the federal government, but we do little or nothing noth-ing about these close-to-home spenders. spend-ers. They are proportionately as bad as Washington. Can we not find those who will find ways to save, as well as ways to spend, or do we try to find them? The tax burden, national, state, county and town has gone far beyond the limit J during his adolescent years. The boy replied by expressing a wish. "Mother," he said, "the one thing I wish for more than anything else," is to get through the adolescent years, and into the years of adultery." adult-ery." Just at that moment there broke into the room a bevy of high school students, boys and girls of the senior class of the community high school. The girls, all too scantily clad, danced through the room, leaving the imprint of lip stick on the tops of several bald heads, and arrayed themselves on the stage, where they gave that man and boy audience an exhibition of tap dancing and high kicking, much to the edification of both men and boys. fr Increased revenue. The need has passed, but the tax Is still being collected. The town needed a new well from which to pump the town's water. It needed the money with which to drill such a well. A supposedly temporary water tax was levied for the purpose. pur-pose. The well was long since paid for, but that tax has not been repealed. re-pealed. A town sales tax was added to the state's sales tax, and it is still being collected, though the purpose for which it was levied has passed. Some years, I feel the county and town assessors, in order to produce the demanded increase, in revenue simply take a selected list and guest at bow much increase each will stand without too much of a bowk This year I am sure I was a victim on both If the police would give tickets to the speeding drivers, the fines assessed would help to pay the cost of my home-town government govern-ment as well as stop the speeding. speed-ing. If the fines collected could go to pay police salaries It might make a difference. In my town and my county the total of new homes have added heavily to the total of tax valuation, valua-tion, but not enough to satisfy the spenders In both town and county governments. . A few weeks ago I was attending a noon-day luncheon of one of the town's service clubs. The speaker of the day wss talking about "Youth Service." He illustrated with a brief story in which a mother of an adolescent son was lecturing him on the need for curbing his activities It was an answer to that adolescent adoles-cent boy's wish. We are prone to bewail the delinquency of youth, and then we encourage some of it by such undraped display of the community's com-munity's daughters as was given at that service club luncheon. What is there in our high school curriculum that calls for such display? dis-play? Certainly ft is not the teaching teach-ing of culture or feminine modesty. Whatever it is, it would be well to discontinue the study, and so discontinue dis-continue the encouragerent of at least one form of youth delinquency. Let us get back to grandmother's days and ways. -- It would seem (hat old people never die, they fust drift Into and stay on the relief rolls. In 1934 they numbered 235.000. In 1951 the number had grown to 2.700,000. 1 |