Getting It Right- The Harder We Work The Less We Have

October 25, 2007

By: Sid Riley

This column presents a non-partisan, conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items that are impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope that you will read the column regularly and that it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week:
"Why does it seem that people are working harder and putting in more work hours than ever before, and families are still barely able to make enough to pay the bills each month?"
Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s most women did not work. They stayed at home and took care of the household and concentrated on the needs of the family. The man of the house was able to work as a common laborer and still earn enough to provide the basic needs of the family such as housing, food, utilities, and occasionally some outside entertainment such as a trip to a movie. In most families their common bond was strong with beliefs rooted in God and a demand for high moral standards.
In order to survive in today’s environment, a high percentage of families are forced into a situation where both the mother and the father must work in order to maintain the operation of the household. In some cases the father must even work two jobs for them to get by. In my opinion this added workload has weakened the family structure and the core concepts of morality the family disciplines previously provided. Mom and Dad just aren’t around enough to form a family unit, they are too busy working for survival.
If through those years wages rose roughly at a rate that matched the rate of inflation, why is all of this extra work a necessity? Some elements of the family cost structure must have grown at a disproportionate rate.
An examination of the levels of increases in costs of various items required by the family over the past thirty or forty years is revealing. It has not been the basic necessities such as food, clothing, and housing that has risen disproportionately, the out of control increases have been for those areas where costs are controlled from international influences, or in those areas where little or no competition exists due to near monopolistic conditions being present.
The giant cost increases have been in the arenas of utilities, health care, medicines, insurance, banking, gasoline, and ……….GOVERNMENT.
What is even more frightening, the costs of these required items is continuing to escalate. What can the head of a struggling household do? There are only a limited number of hours a man can work. The only solution is a lowering in the standard of living for the family. Many have already been forced to this decision.
As an example, I have assembled the data on increases in our local property tax costs during the past six years. This is by no means the only problem area, or even the area with the greatest levels of increase; however it is representative of what is occurring.
Our County Commissioners always brag about how they are "rolling back" the millage and holding the line on tax increases. This is not totally true, since they are only manipulating one part of the total tax calculation. While they are making relatively small reductions in the millage rate, the property assessments rate of increase is sky rocketing upward.
In 2002 the total property assessments in Jackson County was $946,100,169 and the millage was 15.42 %, yielding $14,588,862 in property taxes. In 2007 the total property assessments were $1,401,454,750 and the millage was 13.0%, yielding property tax revenues of $18,218,902.
Marianna’s property taxes have increased $739,627 or 37% during this same period. Graceville has increased 35%, and Sneads only 19%.
Our property assessments have increased 48.1% since 2002! The amount of tax money taken for county government and schools has increased 25.0%! Our taxes have gone up $3.6 million dollars. That is how they afford outrageous benefit packages, herds of new "crats" to overregulate anything we do, and award regular 3% annual raises with $1000 bonuses.
They have only pretended to "hold the line" against tax increases. They have instead been busily digging deeper and deeper into your pockets, and forcing you to work more and more to support your family.
This level of growth in costs in not necessary….and it can be stopped. We should begin at the polls next year. Elect commissioners that will not raise taxes, and department heads that will not increase their budgets. This is one element of our ever-increasing costs that we can do something about. Join the fight to stop this crap and you will be ‘Getting It Right"!
RUDAMENTS: Items worthy of note –
Lake Kindlespire out at Kindel Lanes is nearing completion. It stands as a tribute to the lunacy of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and our local "code-a-crats" who religiously and rigorously enforce their rules. This mosquito breeding pond is part of the EPA "Mosquito Preservation Program", designed to assure the Anopheles mosquito is never put on the Endangered Species list.