A View of the Valley

by Linda Schwanke Your house is on fire so you call 911 as quickly as your shaking fingers can press the buttons. “Best I can do is send a couple guys next Tuesday. We don’t have the budget to get there any sooner,” you are told. Wait, what? Get a grip – you need help now.  I keep hearing that different people want you to vote for “them” because “they” will cut taxes and will oppose any tax increases anyone else proposes and that paying taxes is a bad thing. I don’t like paying taxes any more than anyone else but I realize that taxes are necessary in our society and I like the things my taxes pay for. Like knowing help is on the way when I call 911. Think about it. Taxes pay for roads and all the stuff under them that connect us to each other; food, health and other programs to help the needy and elderly, defense - which includes police and EMS as well as fire protection - housing, hospitals, libraries, lots of things that help make our lives civilized. It’s a big long list of services we count on. When I turn the faucet on, I expect to have drinkable water. This is a real issue because an enormous amount of people in the world don’t have that luxury. I don’t have a problem paying taxes to make sure my water is safe. But taxes are bad, you say. You don’t want to pay them because it costs too much. I don’t completely disagree but do you pay for groceries? Of course you do. I’d like to get milk free but it doesn’t work that way. I like milk and it’s an important part of a healthy diet. Same with all the food we eat. We pay for it because we need it. Are taxes so different? What about paying taxes to support public education? Schools. For our children. Where would we be without education? Children need to learn all the things teachers teach so they can understand the world they are growing up in. The rich would, and do, send their kids to private schools. Without public schools the rest of us would have to let our kids run wild or put them to work. Remember all the horrible pictures and stories about the times before child labor laws were passed? Do we really want to return to that for our children? Children are the future. If they don’t have the tools they need to thrive, the world as we know it is doomed. The future needs people who can innovate and come up with intelligent solutions to the problems that we all face. But maybe that’s the point. Politicians who are so proud of cutting taxes may want us to be stupid, simple creatures who don’t know why clean water and safe roads and school and all the things that those pesky taxes pay for matter. They want us to eat pizza all day because we don’t know any better. They want us to be sheeple (sheep-people) as that trendy expression says and follow along without thought or questions. They want us to do whatever they tell us. And aren’t these the same people who made sure to cut taxes for corporations more than they cut them for the majority of people? Then threw us under the bus to make sure our earning power didn’t keep up with the cost of living? Think about it. This is not to say that I think all taxes are good and that our government institutions aren’t bloated. That’s something to think about, too. It seems like government and politics are all about greed and power, from the top down. The system needs to be fixed. While we can probably never all agree on what’s wasteful spending, I think we can agree that there are things that are good and right to spend tax dollars on even though we don’t like paying those taxes. When you vote in the election on April 6, and every future election, remember that the services that taxes pay for can be critically important, especially as the pandemic rages across the land. Vote for the people who will make wise decisions when spending those hard-earned dollars. We are being short-changed and it has to end. The survival of everything we hold dear is depending on us. Stay in touch. My number is 574-3159. Email me at homenewseditor@newspubinc.com or write to me at the Home News, P.O. Box 39, Spring Green WI 53588.  The news deadline is 12 noon on Mondays.  Visit our website at homenewsrv.com Get in touch with Gwen for sports or features at homenewssports@newspubinc.com. If you need a display ad, Dave Pronold can be reached at homenewssales@newspubinc.com or by calling him on his cell at 588-4777. Display ads, or ads that are in boxes, are due by 1 p.m. on Wednesdays. The classified ad deadline is noon Thursdays the week prior to publication for both the Buyer’s Guide and Home News. Classified rates are $13 for the first 10 words, then 30¢ per word for each additional word. 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