If you’re not mad, you should be
To the editor:
We all pay in some manner or form some 45 different taxes that I have previously written about. Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, we had the largest middle class in the world and Mom actually got to stay home and raise the kids if she chose to.
What the heck happened? Can you spell politicians? Government has an insatiable appetite for spending at the national level and right here at the local level! Are you mad yet?
Locally, Cape Coral is a prime example. The city administration increased spending by some 70 percent in a two-year period. Government became bloated. Now that the rubber is meeting the road the city manager is pushing for a public service tax of 10 percent on electric bills, assessments for Fire Protection, creating street lighting districts, increased franchise fees and a median maintenance assessments to name a few. These proposed assessments are all currently in your tax bill. Mr. Stewart wants them taken out of the ad valorem taxes and bill them directly to residents and then increase the ad valorem tax rate. Are you made yet? There are people that are currently exempt from R/E taxes due to total and permanent disability many from fighting in wars so that we can have the freedoms we have. They will have to pay these assessments and fees if the mayor and council approve them, enabling the city manager to satisfy his insatiable appetite for spending. If he has his way in all of this you will loose this as a deduction on your federal tax return. It is time for government to go cold turkey with their addiction to tax and spend!
Unemployment is at 12 percent in this area and probably higher in Cape Coral because of their dependence on the construction industry, we have one the highest foreclosure rates in the USA, businesses folding every other day. Are you mad yet?
Change has been the key word; Government will stop at nothing to the point of turning you upside down and shake that change out of your pockets! People must rise up and tell these politicians both locally and nationally, I am mad as hell and I am not taking it anymore! People, stand up and tell them over and over until they hear you! Get mad folks!
Now is not the time for tax increases, new taxes, new assessments or fees in these dire economic times. We have some financial experts stating that we are indeed in a depression! Ronald Reagan said “Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets”! Taxes are not about what government wants but rather what the people can afford to pay.
In Cape Coral we have a majority on Council that have proven they are tax-and-spend liberals enabling the city manager to be fiscally reckless with the majority hold on Council.
We the people must make it clear to government that we are mad as hell and will not take it anymore. Email them, call them, go to council meetings and let them know how you feel! Get out and vote in November and elect fiscal conservatives to office!
You cannot just stand there or sit idle while government spending and taxes continue to spiral out of control!! It is your money, it is you government. Get mad, folks. Take action and do something!
Lynn Rosko
Cape Coral