Border
From Gene Caferelli:
Title: Law Enforcement Hampered by Sanctuary City Advocates
Source: Border Fire Report
URL Source: http://www.borderfirereport.net/latest/law-enforcement-hampered-by-sanctuary-city-advocates.html
Published: Dec 22, 2007
Author: Jim Kouri
Post Date: 2007-12-24 07:56:26 by midwest minuteman
Ping List: *Immigration Issues-Borders*
3 Comments
Taxes
From Jim Ehl:
IF I had the answer I could become rich. People have been duped about property taxes for a long time and accept it as a justifiable tax. There are a couple measures in the mill that may help. Go: http:www.ArizonaTaxRevolt.ORG
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: James Bretney
To: Strider
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: Plan Would Let Seniors Work to Pay Taxes
I believe you're right Cochise County is going the way of NY. What do you suggest we do about it?
Jim Ehl wrote:
As 'Tip O'Neil said once, "All politics is local', or words that effect. We could start here in Cochise county getting rid of the three county supervisors and replacing them with supervisors who are concerned about property taxes and will lower significantly lower the tax rate and replaces the county assessor with one who will work to repeal the state statures that dictate the demise of our freedom to own property.
Jim
Reply - This is one of many examples of why We the People need to take control of our governments. As was predicted though when the Founding Fathers were still living, people will learn that they can take money away from others and award it to themselves. Although the Fathers didn't call it Socialism, that is what they were referring to. We are well on our way there and it may be too late to change, particularly as we import low income workers and rapidly facilitate their ability to vote in their own favor, taking money away even from what is referred to as the middle class.
The case of property taxes is one of the leading examples of redistribution of wealth by taxing arbitrarily assigned "value." Since most local governments where property taxes originate are run by people that are effectively elected by the development community, the utility of property taxes appear in another important aspect. As property owners age in property they have owned for a long time, the "value" eventually increases while the income of the property owner eventually decreases. This is important because it accelerates the turn over of property, creating additional health in the real estate community.
We must stop property taxes. In fact, we must stop all taxes that are not based on expenditures or on a fair contribution to what I call Civilized Society Tax. That is a tax to provide the services necessary to ensure the safety of our citizens. It does not include social services. In addition, I would like to see the application of most taxes at the local level, imposed by representatives serving as close to the taxpayer as possible. That way, there would be a better ability to have our desires represented.
Ron
Reply - 2
Jim,
New York being one of the original states does not have the initiative process. We are lucky that the founders in Arizona had the foresight to reserve that power to the people.
There is only one way that the people in those states can bring about a fair property taxation system and that is by withholding their property tax payments until the legislature places something like the AZTR property tax rollback initiatives on the ballot. There really is a need for a Tax Revolt with teeth!
Marc
Are we going down the road in Arizona to what is happening in N.Y.? What the h**ll, why don't the politics just lower her taxes? If anyone complains, wait until they are 73 with a $620 a month income, lived in their home for 43 years then lower their taxes, too. Boy!! Greedy politicians forcing the elderly to work to pay taxes. Lord help us.
By the way, Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrodge.
Jim
To be removed from the list click here.
Plan Would Let Seniors Work to Pay Taxes
Email this Story
Dec 25, 1:38 PM (ET)
By JIM FITZGERALD
(AP) Greenburgh resident Audrey Davison, right, talks with town supervisor Paul Feiner, left, about a...
Full Image
GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) - Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.
Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.
The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.
"People shouldn't have to sell their house, move away to a place with less taxes, leave behind their family and friends," said Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
(AP) Greenburgh town supervisor Paul Feiner, second from left, talks to women in a knitting class at a...
Full Image
He envisions retired doctors mentoring schoolchildren, retired accountants helping with the town's finances, retired lawyers offering their services for a discount. But there are plenty of less-skilled jobs that need doing, he said.
"It's not like we're going to see grandma running the snowplow," he said. "There are lots of things people can do for the town and it wouldn't cost us that much to pay them."
The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.
Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes - perhaps $2,000 to the town - and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.
Talking to Feiner last week at the town senior center, she said, "I would work as long as it was a job where I could sit."
(AP) Janet Goodman, left, talks about a proposed program that will allow her to work off some of her...
Full Image
"You could be a receptionist!" Feiner said. "You could greet people right here, when they come in."
"That I would love," Davison said.
Scott Parkin, spokesman for the National Council on Aging, said the program sounded interesting, as long as it wasn't limited to menial work. "It's certainly in line with what we stand for, keeping seniors involved in work or volunteering as a part of healthy aging," he said.
Boulder County, Colo., pioneered a tax workoff program in 1986 for residents over 60 and now has about 250 applicants for the fewer than 100 openings, said spokeswoman Barbara Halpin. The work done by the seniors includes landscaping, gathering climate data, clipping newspapers and staffing the courthouse information booth.
"Taxes aren't that high out here, so even at $7 an hour people can burn off their county taxes pretty quickly," Halpin said. She added that many stay in the program as volunteers after paying off their taxes.
In Concord, Mass., Maria Casey of the personnel department said about 10 seniors get $8.50 an hour to work at research, data entry and groundskeeping. The program, started in 1999, "allows seniors to be able to work and be involved in the community, and the town benefits by their work," she said.
Feiner is suggesting creating about 25 slots for seniors and letting them work off $500 or so a year. His proposal faces some obstacles. If the wages earned are to be tax-free and directly credited to the property tax bill, the state Legislature would have to approve. In addition, unions would have to be convinced that the program is no threat to their members' job security.
Feiner is hoping for at least a pilot program next year.
Eventually, he said, he would like to see the county and the local school districts adopt similar plans.
"If we got seniors working for the schools, there might be a more intergenerational feeling there," he said. "It might be easier to pass the school budgets."
Janet Goodman, a retired teacher and travel agent who was leading a knitting class at a Greenburgh community center, said paying the bills at her town house in Hartsdale, one of Greenburgh's seven villages, is "a constant struggle." She said she would gladly take part in a tax workoff program "as long as the work is interesting."
"You have to be creative," she said.
email this page to a friend
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
No comments:
Post a Comment