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Show Dear Editor: "I pay enough taxes, I'm going LETTERS TO THE EDITOR socialistic type of government to control us? Citizens, it is up to you to make the choice. You can throw overboard the two hundred years of freedom that we have enjoyed under the Constitution of the United States by sitting to get something back if I can!" This is the kind of rationalizing most of us indulge in--before we stop to think. There is nothing given to us that is not taken first. Next time you hear of free this or free that, rest assured it is not free. School lunch, food stamps, medical care, and in particular the Five-County Five-County Association of Governments Govern-ments do not come for free. Government officials have much to say about truth in labeling. They should tell it like it is with regard to Five-County, which supposedly has the answer to every problem we face. Maybe Five-County programs should be labeled: "Warning: HEW has determined that this program is dangerous to your economic health and ultimately to your freedom." Southwestern District Health, which has been set up to guard our collective health in the five southwestern counties says through Dr. Trafton that most of us do not get proper medical care. I think Dr. Trafton would' agree that too much government intervention would be like transfusing blood from your right arm to your left using a leaky tube. We all know what has happened to Great Britain because of "free" health care. A better answer to our problems would be to trim government spending and reduce taxes so we won't need free lunch, free food, free medical care, and Five-County. Sincerely, Mrs. Deon Williams Editor: What is Regional Government? Govern-ment? It is a government organized by bureaucrats and socialists without the vote or consent of the people by executive orders of President Nixon at the national level, then followed by Governor Rampton at the state level. At the national level President Nixon divided the fifty states and created ten regional districts. At the state level Governor Rampton Ramp-ton created seven regional districts in the State of Utah made up of counties. Regional governments of any form or kind is unconstitutional, un American, and follows the Russian type of governments. Remember all these regional governments are created without the consent or vote of the people, but by executive orders of Nixon and Rampton. Remeber also that orders and controls come from Chicago, Illinois, to Denver, Colorado, to Salt Lake City, Utah, then to the five county association of governments located in Cedar City, Utah. These are regional governments. We now have four levels of governments supported by taxation to maintain instead of three levels, which the Constitution Con-stitution of the United States and Utah provides. Do you want this bureaucratic quietly and accepting the gradual take over by regional government., Citizens for Constitutional Government Iron County Chapter No. 26 Cedar City, Utah Box 84 The Editor: My letter to the Iron County Record published October 30 was in error in describing my 1975 property tax as a final result of re-appraisal by the State Tax Commission. The Commission assessed values are not to be applied until 1976. The work of the Tax Commission Com-mission started in Iron County late in 1974 and .the assessed value for my lot doubled in 1975. However, I learned that the Commission increase in my land value assessment will be about five times higher than the assessed value of $200, which had been used from 1962 to 1974, inclusive. This will bring the value for tax purposes closer to the amount called for by law, and, assuming that all land value assessments uniformly increase, will result in a greatly improved property tax. While the tax levy on land value will very substantially sub-stantially increase, the levy on improvemetnts must necessarily decrease sharply because the total property tax collections must not rise more than six percent over the previous year, excluding levies on newly assessed properties. The thrust of my arguments remain the same but I am glad to give greater credit to the Tax Commission Com-mission than I had given in my letter of last week. The prospects for sharply decreasing federal funds fir local purposes must be apparent when we consider that not to decrease them is to continue inflation with its many damaging results, This should mean that the property tax as it falls on land values must increase, even above what the present law calls for. To consider added sales taxes, income taxes or property taxes on improvements should be unthinkable., Sincreely Earl A. Hanson I |