Selectboard needs to rethink sales tax plan
Editor of the Reformer:
Our Selectboard must have too much time on their hands. I say this because that’s the only logical reason I can come up with for the two recent schemes they are cooking up.
The first such plan is to institute a 1 percent sales tax. It’s bad enough that tax-free New Hampshire is just across the river from us. Add to that the fact that a sales tax is probably the most regressive tax there is. It unduly and disproportionately affects the less affluent among us. Plan number two is the building of a new Police-Fire facility. I have long been on record as favoring such a project, particularly when it was first proposed 10 years ago when the economy was humming. But now? As one spectator put it, "Are you people puts?"
First they decrying the lack of money so they want a sales tax. Then they ask us to increase our debt.
You know, the current Selectboard has been an tranquil and amicable group. Maybe that’s the problem. Might we wish to return to the days of a couple of years ago when all they did was fight with each other? At least they didn’t come up with any hair-brained, costly ideas on how to confiscate our money and throw us deeper into debt.
Bob Fagelson,
Brattleboro, Nov. 13
Time for the ‘taxoholics’ to find another line of work
Editor of the Reformer:
A sales tax in Brattleboro?
The local town fathers should take a little ride across the bridge to Hinsdale and observe how many Vermont cars are in Wal-Mart’s parking lot. They probably outnumber the New Hampshire cars! Take a trip to Keene or Claremont and observe all the Vermont cars in all those parking lots. Vermonters are drowning in taxes! The taxoholics in the Legislature do not care! Look at the state budget that Gov. Douglas vetoed -- $24 million in new taxes and there’s talk about raising the property taxes even higher.
We Vermonters need to get rid of these uncaring taxaholics. The Legislature needs a good housecleaning, and the taxaholics in our town halls need to be cleaned out too! The next election cycle is the cure!
Gary Mosher,
Saxtons River, Nov. 13
Galbraith’s oil deal is an embarrassing mess
Editor of the Reformer:
What delicious timing that The New York Times should break the story of former Ambassador Peter Galbraith’s potential Kurdish oil windfall on the same day that he was scheduled for his annual address to the Windham World Affairs Council.
A work commitment kept me away this year, so the only direct testimony I managed to hear were his remarks on NPR’s "All Things Considered," and what was reported in that impeccable news source, the Brattleboro Reformer.
I have always had, and still do, the utmost respect for Ambassador Galbraith, and I sympathize with his likely embarrassment at getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, when it might have greatly benefitted him to announce that he was reaching in first. However, I think that we need to take one step back and assess the situation in geopolitical as well as personal terms.
There can be no doubt that Ambassador Galbraith has been a long term advocate for the Kurds, much of it at a time when most of us couldn’t find Kurdistan on the map, and at that time he worked diligently to make the world aware of the ghastly suffering inflicted on them by the late and not very much lamented Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. I strongly suspect that in Kurdish circles, this oil deal might be considered just reward for his actions on their behalf.
According to the Reformer, (said Galbraith) "By having their own natural resources, the Kurds have a vehicle to defend themselves against future attacks..." Whether giving up 5 percent of those natural resources to Peter Galbraith was a good deal would probably be best assessed by the Kurds.
So let us ponder for a moment about what a man might do with $100 million. Obviously, it would be very difficult to spend that kind of money on home renovations, vacations, college educations, a new car or even any combination thereof.
This is the type of burden that only the newly fabulously wealthy can ever truly grapple with, although we do know that some of them end up giving substantial sums of money to bankroll the public good.
This is something that Mr. Galbraith alone needs to sort out, but perhaps it would ease his public burden if we were to bestow upon him the new honorific of Businessman & Ambassador Peter Galbraith.
David M. Clark,
Westminster, Nov. 13
Derrea setup thwi Keyturk Blescram*
Editor of the Reformer:
Here we go again!
Another year where the Reformer cannot do the Turkey Scramble without leaving out letters in some of the words. We have done this for years and it is an ongoing problem. What is the solution to correct this?
Bernita Wheelden
Hinsdale, N.H., Nov. 7
* -- Reader upset with Turkey Scramble
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