OK, look, you all. If you want services, you have to pay for them. Potholes in the road? Not enough money for schools to provide adequate supplies? Too many speeders and not enough police presence? Your social services fading away? When you voted “yes” on Initiative 1366, you just shot yourself in the foot and hog-tied the state Legislature, making them have to choose between two evils.
“No new taxes” is a tired slogan. No new taxes is what got us to where we are today with diminished monetary resources to do the work that needs doing and provide the services we all demand. It’s good that we want those governing our communities to operate as efficiently as possible and make sound choices with the funds that are available. But that can only go so far. If we each squeeze out a tiny bit more from our limited budgets and maybe forgo a restaurant meal or two, or buying that big-screen television or that mountain of quickly forgotten Christmas presents, we can all reap far more meaningful and longer-term benefits.
Taxes are not always a bad thing.
