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To: speed_addiction

Most families do not regularly use the services provided by their local government. Police are used most by disrupters and lower income neighborhoods. I don't believe you will find many firefighters fighting fires in the better neighborhoods of NY because they attempt to keep their investments up, mass transit is used most by those owning no cars. Thus, it is my contention that public services are used most by those who do not pay any tax or very little tax.

I do not live in NY but in my local community. My property taxes cover my local schools and city expenses. I pay for trash bags and limited bag numbers of contracted trash pickup (pickup used to be provided). I pay a fee if I haul my own trash to the city landfill, I pay or do my own shoveling of the city owned sidewalk (which used to be provided and is required within 24 hours of a snowstorm).

I have wondered what my tax dollars are purchasing for me since our police is now dispatched from another city (regional function) as well as 911 (fee is collected on my phone bill). I guess it is for the zoning laws and the library. Maybe those who use the police, fire departments and schools should be paying the tax for them, the library could charge an admission fee and city officials could eliminated. That would be a good way to downsize government and take the social tax programs out of our society. I guess we are beyond educating the country kids that were needed on the farm to make a living.

Wonder how all those who hate the Ponzi Scheme of SS would like such a proposal? Might they see they are also partaking at the well?


101 posted on 02/22/2005 9:21:36 AM PST by Snoopers-868th
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To: Trout-Mouth
Most families do not regularly use the services provided by their local government. Police are used most by disrupters and lower income neighborhoods. I don't believe you will find many firefighters fighting fires in the better neighborhoods of NY because they attempt to keep their investments up, mass transit is used most by those owning no cars. Thus, it is my contention that public services are used most by those who do not pay any tax or very little tax.

I don't think it's quite that simple for police and mass transit -- people who own valuable property benefit more from the deterrent effect of police presence, and people who drive benefit from the reduction in traffic caused by mass transit.

(Someone is bound to argue against my previous message on the grounds that people who don't have kids benefit from the presence of an "educated population". Setting aside the question of whether the government schools actually produce any such thing, that premium is extracted by the free market -- an hour of a trained professional's time costs more than an hour of a grunt laborer's time. Thus, people are already paying for the benefit they receive from other people's educations.)

102 posted on 02/22/2005 9:41:27 AM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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