Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kudos to Winter Park and Grand Lake town councils

Bravo to the town councils  for stepping up with cash to keep Fraser Elementary and Grand Lake Elementary schools open for the short term.  It says loads about the priorities of the residents in Grand County, Colorado.  Long term solutions may well involve raising sales taxes and I favor it.  May this be a lesson to all of us: when the federal government steps back from supporting education or providing stimulus money to keep teachers hired, and the State has no money either, someone has to pay for education for our children. There is no free lunch. 

While there are many who rail against Federal control, big government and big spending and tout state balanced budgets, what really happens is that taxpayers still have to pay for services they treasure and the burden is shifted from federal taxes and state taxes to the local level....higher taxes nonetheless.  Local control also means taking the responsibility for local funding...whether in higher sales taxes or property taxes.  Tax payers still pay the bills, no matter what.

What we also must realize is that the ability to get grants to go to college, build and maintain highways, regulate interstate commerce, provide accessible health care, provide for our national defense, and many other functions cannot be provided by local governments, no matter how high they raise local taxes. Cost cutters need to ask themselves to whom are they shifting the burden of financing. Are they shoving it from higher levels of government down to lower ones just to be able to claim they have balanced a budget or reduced a deficit?

For more information, go to http://www.skyhidailynews.com/  February 11 and  February 16, 2011 editions,
available on the e edition if it is still not posted on the on line edition.

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