higher taxes or cut services (real estate, insurance, unemployed)

[Wild Style]

Which one would you guys choose?

link

[harttogo]

cut services especially when Mr Notter, head of the Broward County school board makes $ 230,000 a year, Plus an outrageous retirement package. A Ft. Lauderdale fire department member made $88,000 in regular pay a year, plus he made $80,000 in overtime during that year. Some school teachers make $44.00 an hour to teach driver`s ed. A full sized school bus barely loaded drops kids off at school. There are so many examples of extravagance in city and County government but you can kind of get what I mean by the above examples. I recall the cliche that I think went something like this: 'to many chiefs but not enough indians'.

[Wild Style]

hartogo

maybe instead of them cutting services they should go job by job and enforce pay decreases where needed

[harttogo]

Social programs for those who so desperately need them should never be cut. Parks and Libraries should never be cut.

[chisoxfan]

I suspect that if you took a countywide poll, cutting services would win by a comfortable margin because folks vote with their pocketbooks. Too many people are strapped because they're unemployed, underemployed or having to accept cuts in pay and benefits. Rate hikes for FPL and windstorm insurance are on the horizon. A tax increase on top of everything else would be too much to take.

That said, I agree with the previous post. Identify the most essential services and keep them no matter what.

Of course, neither cuts nor tax increases might be necessary if waste and corruption in county government were eliminated.

[Jadex]

Since I dont get services and not rich I have to pick cut services

Why would I want to pay higher taxes

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by chisoxfan

I suspect that if you took a countywide poll, cutting services would win by a comfortable margin because folks vote with their pocketbooks. Too many people are strapped because they're unemployed, underemployed or having to accept cuts in pay and benefits. Rate hikes for FPL and windstorm insurance are on the horizon. A tax increase on top of everything else would be too much to take.

That said, I agree with the previous post. Identify the most essential services and keep them no matter what.

Of course, neither cuts nor tax increases might be necessary if waste and corruption in county government were eliminated.

I agree cut waste, cut corruption and at the same time, make these over paid people in city and state jobs take pay cuts.

[Nolefan34]

I think we're at the point where there's nothing left to cut but essential services. Schools, fire department, police department, libraries. We just need to keep cutting forever until we're all illiterate, uneducated, and unskilled. All of the good jobs will go elsewhere because labor is cheaper in China, India, and Mexico. We'll just keep working for less until we're making pennies on the dollar, and we'll become serfs and peasants who are indentured servants to the few billionaires and corporations left. Our roads will be sold off to the Chinese. Police departments will have to be privatized since we can no longer afford to fund them, and they will become secret security services for private wealthy individuals to protect them from the masses of unemployed, poor serfs. We'll just have to revert back to feudalism.

Honestly though, I pick raise taxes. Paying more taxes is well worth it if it creates employment, drives wages up, and increases the value of the dollar. Better funded schools will attract businesses and higher-wealth residents. We've been cutting taxes for years and what has that gotten us? You cannot keep cutting taxes or else you'll go into an economic tailspin which is pretty much what's happened to FL.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by Nolefan34

I think we're at the point where there's nothing left to cut but essential services. Schools, fire department, police department, libraries. We just need to keep cutting forever until we're all illiterate, uneducated, and unskilled. All of the good jobs will go elsewhere because labor is cheaper in China, India, and Mexico. We'll just keep working for less until we're making pennies on the dollar, and we'll become serfs and peasants who are indentured servants to the few billionaires and corporations left. Our roads will be sold off to the Chinese. Police departments will have to be privatized since we can no longer afford to fund them, and they will become secret security services for private wealthy individuals to protect them from the masses of unemployed, poor serfs. We'll just have to revert back to feudalism.

John Q public has been serfs for a long time now. Really stop and think about real estate. You live on it and you THINK you own it but do you really? What happens if you dont pay property tax for example to our govt over lords? Sort of like land tax on serfs no?

[Nolefan34]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

John Q public has been serfs for a long time now. Really stop and think about real estate. You live on it and you THINK you own it but do you really? What happens if you dont pay property tax for example to our govt over lords? Sort of like land tax on serfs no?

Well by a serf I mean someone who is a poor, indentured servant who works for low wages and lives on a peasant farm owned by a lord. A serf has no property rights and owns nothing, and works to barely afford 3 meals a day, clothing, and a roof over his head. I don't think we're quite at that level of subsistence yet, but that is the direction I see us heading unless some big time changes occur soon with our economic policies. If you are implying that the government really owns your property then you are correct. But how is that any different than any other country in the world? Let me ask you this. Would you rather the U.S. government own the land? Or the Chinese? Because that's who would buy us out if our government did not assume ultimate ownership rights or imminent domain. In the U.S., as long as you pay your taxes you should not have a problem. Paying property taxes is what you agreed to prior to buying the house. If you had a problem with it then you have no business owning property.

Ever since Ronald Reagan began cutting taxes and outsourcing jobs, our wages have steadily declined, budget deficits have skyrocketed, and trade deficits have soared. The average person can barely afford to raise a family, pay a mortgage, car payments, and insurance. We are at the point where our dollar has been diminished and we're forever in debt to China. Our education system has been continually undercut to the point where our populous is largely uneducated, and our youth is not competitive with students from foreign countries. So with all of these negative factors at play, tell me how we can continue to operate this way?

By cutting taxes, we are borrowing against our futures. Don't people understand that cutting taxes increases the deficit?