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David Spates Which taxes would Sometimes you just have to take one for the
team. Quit your bellyaching, screw up your courage, choke down
the shilly-shallying and do what's best for the greatest number
of people. Well, apparently there are some cranky old
retirees in Florida who would rather hold on to their nickels
and dimes than their share. Well, I say who needs them? I hope
all their tee shots slice into the woods, I hope they lose their
dentures in the minestrone soup at the early bird buffet, and
I hope their Social Security checks get lost in the mail for
a couple of days - just to make them sweat. Here's the story I saw from The Associated
Press. A Tallahassee mobile home park for retirees doesn't have
to pay school impact fees because no school-age children live
there. So say the members of the Florida Supreme Court, whose
members, I'm sure, are mostly retirement-aged. Well excuse me for asking, but since when
are we allowed to choose which taxes we're going to pay? I don't
have any kids either, so should I be exempt from paying a quite
sizable portion of my taxes? Of course not, and neither should
these overfed double-wide dwellers in Tallahassee. Shut up and
pay your fair share. I guess it should come as no surprise that
some people in Tallahassee don't want to spend money for schools.
Look at all the money that gets poured into Florida State there.
If THAT was the result of my hard-earned tax dollars, maybe I'd
be a little cross, too. But let me put my Florida State bias aside
for a moment and continue with the issue at hand. And here's a portion of the written court's
majority opinion from the Honorable Justice Peggy Quince: "Aberdeen
neither contributes to the need for additional schools nor benefits
from their construction." Is mine the only jaw that dropped when reading
this? Just because these coots don't have any kids
in the Volusia County schools doesn't mean they don't benefit
from them. We all benefit when children enjoy a higher standard
of education, but it doesn't come cheaply. Money is needed to
build schools, pay for teachers, purchase equipment, etc., and
unless you want to live in a country where the only phrase you
need to know to make a living is "You want fries with that?"
you had better be prepared to pony up some cash for education. That's what I mean by taking one for the team.
The residents of Aberdeen may not personally enjoy any immediate
benefit from the increase impact fees. After all, many of them
no doubt will be taking the big dirt nap by the time many of
today's kindergartners graduate from high school years from now.
But the community as a whole - not just the Aberdeen penny-pinchers
- will undoubtedly benefit. There's no such thing as too many
schools. If I paid taxes only for things that directly
benefited me, April 15 wouldn't be such an irksome day around
the Spates house. But I pay my taxes, regardless if I'm directly
assisted by the government's purchases. Do city, county, state
and federal governments waste money? Absolutely they do. I'd
say a substantial portion of my tax dollar is squandered with
reckless abandon. Education, however, is not a waste, and the Geritol-popping crowd at Aberdeen at Ormond Beach Manufactured Housing Community should know that. |