Looking To November

To the Editor:

After three referendums we finally have a town budget, thanks to strong school support. Yet the schools will still take a hit next year. Nobody is against educating our children nor are they for potholes and unplowed winter streets. But too many of us are feeling the squeeze of ever-increasing taxes and fees from local, state, and federal levels, coupled with lower or nonexistent incomes.

If we thought this year’s budget process was tough, just wait until next year, when the squeeze gets tighter. Here are a few examples:

In December, Congress is allowing the 2001 federal tax cuts to expire. This means increased federal taxes — income, dividend, capital gains, estate, etc. (Why don’t tax increases ever have an expiration date?)

Come 2011 we’ll begin feeling the effects of new taxes, fees, penalties, and regulations due to Obamacare.

Our federal “stimulus” funds for education will run out in 2011, leaving a hole in our education budget.

Expect skyrocketing energy prices. Obama intends to force a national energy tax through Congress (Cap and Trade style). And the EPA, an unelected body not answerable to the citizens, has been given free rein to regulate all energy consumption that produces greenhouse gasses. (Note: Dodd and Lieberman were two of the 53 Senators, all Democrats, who recently voted to cede these constitutional legislative duties to the EPA.)

Have you seen state taxes and fees go down lately?

This is on top of an unsustainable and rapidly growing national debt ($13+ trillion!) and unfunded liabilities ($109+ trillion!); totaling almost $395,000 per each man, woman and child!

Our town budget is where we have the most influence over our government, less so at the state level, and we’re only a grain of sand on the vast beach of the federal government. The trouble is, at an unprecedented rate, the federal government is usurping more and more power from the people and the states.

Our elected Democrats no longer represent the people or our Constitution; they only represent ideals – ideals for an over-burdening central government that diminishes our personal liberties and wealth and controls our livelihoods, all for the promise of utopia. And they have shown they will do whatever it takes to force their will on “we the people.”

We have the opportunity to change the downward spiral our country is in. It’s called the November elections. Seeing the damage the radical left Obama administration has inflicted in just 18 months, this might be our last chance before the country our founders bequeathed to us is beyond repair and/or bankrupt.

Thankfully Dodd is out, but we must be sure not to replace him with Blumenthal, who will only be another Obama sycophant. Our “Representative” Chris Murphy is a proven Obama/Pelosi lackey, continually voting for more centralized power and against the will of the people. Murphy must go.

The November elections are vitally important if we are to save our schools, town, country, and above all, our children’s futures.

Cathy Reiss

42 Obtuse Road, Newtown                                             June 16, 2010