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Letter: Port taxes are unnecessary

The Columbian
Published: August 22, 2011, 5:00pm

The Port of Vancouver is an excellent example of a needless tax on the 300,000 property owners in the port district.

The port originated 99 years ago to encourage economic development and to prevent a private individual from buying up all the land in the state where a ship could be loaded or unloaded to gain a shipping monopoly. The law prevented a private monopoly but created a governmental monopoly with the ability to levy taxes to cover their mismanagement. Our port is a big business and any old business of this size should not be calling on 300,000 small property owners each year to make their books balance.

I have worked for the World Bank in the former U.S.S.R. and Albania — they are called a socialist worker’s paradise. But they are an economic mess where the workers live in ugly slums. Avoid socialism, like our port.

My family has been paying port taxes for 99 years. The port has developed faster than our property because they end up with some of our money each year. Think where we would be if we had invested the same amount for 99 years in stock of a firm that ran a port.

Robert J. Buker

Hazel Dell

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