Brown lambasted for taxes

No one likes paying taxes. But let’s face facts, they are necessary to providing a good life for us all. Costs are continually rising. In order for us to maintain all the services provided by government, taxes, too, must go up.

Lisa Brown is being lambasted by Cathy McMorris Rodgers for supporting the necessary increases in taxes to keep services at or above what we want. An example of a service? How about the recent fire in Spokane Valley? How are all those firefighters, and the planes and helicopters, going to get paid without taxes? In order to do their jobs they need the best equipment possible. Those engines they use do not come cheap. Did anyone see that big DC-10 dropping 3,000 gallons of retardant in a single pass? How long would that fire have burned; how many homes would have burned, if planes like that weren’t available?

Income tax? Well, I now live in Idaho. We have sales and income taxes. Sales taxes hit you little bits at a time. Keep track and see how much you pay a year vs. what you’d pay in income tax. Make sure the sales tax is eliminated first, though.

John Slaughter

Spirit Lake, Idaho