Taxpayers getting shaft on taxation levels

Jerry Reed sang a song called "She Got the Goldmine." It's about him getting a divorce and his wife getting her "fair share." He wanted to be fair and give her what she had coming but he had no idea that she was going to get "the better half."

I saw that the mayor of Pea Ridge made the television news the other day. It is my understanding that the mayor was, at one time, the president of the Arkansas Municipal League. Apparently he and all of his upper staff went to Little Rock last week for a municipal league meeting with all the other mayors from all the small towns in Arkansas. No one with any real authority was left in town to run the city.

Now I am not sure what they did down there at that meeting but it is my understanding that when they got back the Pea Ridge City Council endorsed a referendum recommending that the state of Arkansas should pass an additional law requiring the collection of taxes on all of the products bought and sold in Arkansas on the internet so that the state and towns could legally collect all of that additional tax revenue.

In my opinion, taxes are a necessary evil. I pay my taxes. Every time I buy something I pay taxes. However, my question is this: Is it the mayor's job as the mayor of our little city, to push for additional taxes for the citizens of this town or for the people of this state, for that matter. Is that really part of his job as Pea Ridge mayor?

I was talking to a man a while back and he explained to me that there were some students at the University of Arkansas who had done the math and they had concluded that in a period of two years, every single dollar paid in wages would eventually change hands enough times that they would create one additional dollar of tax revenue. Now then, if there is any kind of accuracy to this statement, you would have to ask, why would we need any additional taxes?

Have you ever wondered where the state would get enough money to be able to spend over $24 million to build a single turnaround and overpass over the highway, let alone all the other stuff that is being built.

If there is any truth to what I have said, now you can understand why the government does not care how much tax money is being spent or wasted.

So now go out and do your civic duty and spend all of the money that you make so that your government can get its "fair share."

The reason they want us to pay more taxes is because they make mistakes and spend over $5 million installing steel cables on the highway and then just two years later they go and tear them all out again.

Boyd B. McNiel

Pea Ridge

Would truck-strewn property be tolerated elsewhere?

South Fayetteville is often overlooked. A good example is what I call "the truck junk yard." Three lots north of 15th Street on the west side of South School is a business repairing large tractor trucks. It is haven to one ugly collection of trashed truck cabs and various parts.

If it were in another part of town, the city of Fayetteville would make them clean it up. Might I suggest someone look into this god awful mess.

Don Lyall

Fayetteville

Commentary on 07/01/2017

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