A couple of friends mentioned my little diatribe at the Town Meeting. I try to be measured and factual whenever I speak to issues of the day. I am far from being perfect (maybe a perfect bunghole) and my intent was to talk a little about the people normally left out of the budget process and some of the challenges that they face everyday. I have attached the gist of my statement to the town........Expectation of our elected officials, live within budget constraints much as we Bradford residents are forced to do, and to spend as much effort to stay on budget as is spent on finding new fees and taxes. As an example of new fees, there is now a 5.00 disposal fee for each vehicle tire brought to the Transfer Station. Yet we are required to pay a tax on vehicles when we register our vehicles in the town. Is this the true cost of disposal or is it a built in extra money maker for the town coffers? I would think that each household should be able to dispose of at least 4 tires per registered vehicle per year (excluding commercial use). COLA for social Security is 1.5 percent for 2014. And a number of the residents in town are dependent on this small income to live on. So every tax rise is devastating to these people who want to be able to afford to live here. PROPERTY taxes in New Hampshire are the second highest in the US. Only New Jersey has a higher cost. And the status stays the same for property taxes on private homes. How much more can be expected that we carve out of our fixed, stagnant, or dropping incomes and be able to stay in our homes and still have enough income to pay for the skyrocketing everyday costs that we face. Energy costs for gasoline (and the rising new taxes that is expected for same), electricity, food, and just plain old inflation on nearly everything we purchase. INCOME is down nearly 4,000 per year per household across the US, some experts place that figure at closer to 7,000 per year. So as I mentioned above, income for most is dropping or stagnant, our ability to pay more in taxes is at the breaking point as we talk here today. I would hope that we will see some relief from our elected officials and see some ways to stay on budget be put forward as well as ways to ask for more money. End. I tried to frame the statement around the fact that we already pay a high tax, and that if they must rise it must be for a good reason, but not just for looking nice or for swank offices for Town Officials. Also I did deviate from it just a little during the talk. Love GPa
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 10:57:20 +0000
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