Property Taxes... the Death of US, Michigan and the U.S.A.
Property Taxes... the Death of US, Michigan and the U.S.A.
Has anyone noticed that property taxes seem to go higher and higher each year? Why is this happening you ask. Let's take a look and see if we can figure it out. Find your property tax bills.... you may have two, one for the summer and one for the winter taxes. The amounts you pay will differ on those two bills and you pay different millages on each bill. As your property values increase, the amount you pay in taxes will increase. When we vote YES on a bond proposal and millage, we are granting the taxing authorities the right to increase our property taxes. STOP voting yes on every bond proposal and millage!! We must force the government and other entities seeking our dollars to find another source of revenue. We are being taxed out of our homes and off our property!!! We are being forced to close the very businesses that offer us jobs and a living!!!
We will be addressing the County Libraries in this article.
We will be addressing the County Libraries in this article.
Way back in the early 1900s the government said we should build libraries and offer a place for people to learn. This was mostly to keep uneducated young men off the streets and away from a life of crime. It was to give them a chance to better themselves and find a job where they could be productive members of a society reeling from the 1st World War and then the Depression. I'm not sure we have succeeded in that goal when we are faced with major crime and overcrowded prisons....
Most counties have multiple county libraries. There are also city libraries and some rural libraries. Some townships have small libraries and people have also created tiny private libraries and book dispensaries or posted book boxes in their yards. It seems we all agree books are great!!!
What is not so great is the fact that kids are not learning to read. Even with libraries in the schools, and all of those other libraries, kids tested at the 4th grade, 8th grade and 12th grade levels CANNOT read!! Some schools are even closing their libraries or transitioning them into TECH centers.
While we are paying for the school libraries with our property tax dollars via a school millage, we are funding those county and city libraries with our property taxes as well. If the schools do not think libraries are important enough to keep them in the schools and teach the kids to read, why then are we paying for libraries at the risk of losing our homes, farms and businesses?
I live in Kent County, Cannon Township. Cannon Township has approximately 14,400 residents. In one year, the property tax payers of Cannon Township paid $1,048,000.00 (one million, forty-eight thousand dollars) to Kent County for the use of the Krause library in Rockford. If you do that calculation, it appears Cannon Township spent $72.78 per resident. However, there are only 2200 library card holders in Cannon Township...so the per person rate is actually $476.36 per person!!!! That’s a lot of money to spend on less than 15% of the population in Cannon Township!
My home pays $280.38 and my business pays $771.29 per year for a Library I have NEVER used. Each year that amount will increase. I can only go to the library as one person. I cannot possibly take my business to the library. How many other people are paying for a library service they do not use? If kids cannot read and schools are removing libraries from the schools, why then, are we all paying for a library where kids may go but cannot read the books available to them there? Why, if we are paying for the libraries and the books, do we not have more say in the types of books that are available? If people are using the libraries as a gathering or meeting place, do we not already pay for schools that have auditoriums and gyms, township halls that have rooms for meetings, senior centers etc? If people are going to the library to use the computers, why do we pay for so many books and the space to house them? These libraries look like Taj Mahals!! Most of them are ghost towns!!! Some even supply bikes!!
Libraries, like workout gyms, and movie theaters, should be paid thru membership or admissions. They should absolutely NOT be paid with property tax dollars. Spending is wasteful, wages and pensions are bountiful. I could buy a lot of books I choose to read for the over $1000 dollars I pay each year. (That is even much more than I would expect a membership to be.) How about you?? Do you have other, better ways to spend your money??
SHOW ME THE BOOK IN THE LIBRARY WORTH SOMEONE LOSING THEIR HOME!!!
