by Helen Woytovech

Created on: October 27, 2008

As long as the government and corporations have the opportunity to pick the citizen's pockets indiscriminately without accountability, they will take and spend - take and spend - take and spend adding to the deficit, as well as running this country deeper into socialism.

Enough is enough! Income tax by the federal and some state governments, property tax by local governments are a cancer.

Income tax by the federal and some state governments place the burden on the common working citizen who sits and wonders if he will have a job tomorrow, a home, how to pay for health or if the money in his pension is still available. The same citizen taxpayer supports the president's salary, perks, expenses and pension for two to four years of work.

Property is confiscated if the tax is not paid by the greedy government bureaucrats who continue dipping their hands into the owners' pockets without collecting from those that do not own property. At this point - is sales tax the only equitable levy on all citizens? I don't know, but penalizing property owners is not the answer as when the government seizes enough properties for taxes they lose their income base. We have highly paid presumably educated government economic specialists who apparently are not capable of providing a solution. Maybe they as well as the policies should be replaced.

Money keeps pouring into the political coffers via taxes, bonds at all levels of government for education, foreign aid, pork projects, etc. and they keep asking for more. Where is all this money going? Where is the accountability? Why are property owners without children who have paid their dues paying for schools and those property owners who opted not to have children required to pay toward education? Why aren't renters with school-age children assessed for the privilege of educating each child? Bush's no child left behind is admirable and ideological, but impractical. The fact that the school system is graduating students even with special classes who cannot add, subtract or perform fractions without the use of a calculator or computer, legibly write a coherent sentence or verbalize a sentence or idea should red signal educators that some children are not college material and should be taught a trade You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Yet politicians blame school policies, teachers and parents instead of the lax educational requirements they keep amending.

What about the 700 billion for economic stimulus or the 700 for shoring up Wall Street and banks who used half a million to entertain their Executives why were they given this luxury when US working citizens can't afford medical care, gas to go to work or a decent meal?. Where is the stipulation in CEO contracts to deduct from their contracts as well as provide bonuses and to disallow severance pay in the event of financial problems? Even as a business fails, the CEO receives a generous severance pay plus a bonus and perks without penalties for failures - something is wrong with our business ideologies.

This entire situation did not occur in the past two to three years. These are only a few areas needing revisions. Is the United States to follow the road of other nations - founded, formed into a nation, maturing, developed economically, excessive prosperity they could not handle, corruption, deceit, declining as a power?

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