OPINION: Enough taxes; no really, it's enough

More taxes will not help our economy or the people having trouble paying bills!

I have read about the new taxes being proposed by our city and county, and I just don”t get it because we are going backwards each year on our income.

First the city wants to get a sales tax on us which is proven only goes up and never reduces so again we lose. Now they propose reducing our property taxes, which sounds OK.

But the reality is that if they reduce them, then they can raise them again, which we know they will do, so it isn’t going to help. We know that the city has wanted a local-option tax and they are determined to get more taxes out of us. The fact is that our governments, federal, state and local, are all wanting more of our hard earned cash.

While we take less home it seems that they want more. When will it stop!

Food and gasoline prices have risen so much in the last 10 years that I am sure that my parents would turn over in their graves with these prices. The federal government has really hurt us by doing so many things to raise prices and little to reduce them. Building more refineries for fuel and drilling more in our country and not shipping to China would surely help.

Oh yes, Obama just killed the Keystone so don’t expect any help there as he finishes his term. Also we have lost so much food production in this country as we used to be pretty much self-sufficient. Now we are shipping in the food that we used to produce, and again what has the government done to help the farming industry? So many farms repossessed because costs are up and profit is small!

The 911 tax was rejected by the taxpayers of this community and they will rerun it until they get it passed. So that will be added to our property taxes and you can bet they will rise, because remember once they get this, it will only go up. Why is it these costs aren’t told to the public when they want to build all these things, but later they reveal that we need these extra funds to maintain these projects.

Let’s talk about the Glacier Rail Park/Kalispell Core Area Development and Trail project proposed by the city to develop certain areas, but again who is going to pay for the upkeep to these areas and do the improvements in the future? Our parks are not being well cared for and they wanted a tax for that, but it didn’t go through. The trees in the city are being taken care of through the tax they put on us a few years back which was labeled as the park or tree tax. Don’t forget they wanted a road user fee or tax on us also.

My problem is yes a lot of the money is being donated, but they are using tax increment money too. Is this the same money that was supposed to about five years back create a west side improvement area that would have improved the west side? Of course this didn’t happen and I know because the information I had at the time gave me a map which included my block to be improved. Those monies were directed elsewhere, so why again should I trust our government officials?

Wow all these things add up fast, don’t they? When I bought my house 30 years ago taxes weren’t so bad, but now they have more than tripled, which really hurts. I pay for my services for living in the city: sewer, garbage, water and all the other costs that come with owning a home. Now I want to know with all these costs why is my paycheck not going very far. We have mill levies we are still paying on, and they never go away so consider this before you vote for all these.

Remember we still have schools to take care of too, so how do we do all this and still come out ahead? Supporting the schools and our kids is important.

Remember a few years back they wanted a user fee for our roads but that didn’t go through. Then there was the transaction fee they wanted a few years back so must I go on. We the people must control our destinies, but we must not have the right to pursue happiness because we are taxed to death.

The problem seems to be related to government growth as they are getting too big and need too much money to keep going. The real problem is the waste in the government, because the waste is outrageous. We have people with assistants, which adds to the overall budget, and when will this end? People, do the job you were hired for and stop having someone else do the work for you.

We have to cut the fat at the top since that is where a lot of our issues reside!

Shupert is a resident of Kalispell.