Freeze The Budget

To the Editor:

Let’s put a stop to the annual property tax increase. Unemployment, foreclosures, falling housing values, and high gas prices aren’t enough to stop our local officials from their annual raid on our pocketbooks.

If the “worse economy since the Great Depression” produces a budget with a 2.34 percent increase, what do they have in store for us when the economy return to “normal.”

Common sense indicates the current funding mechanism for town budgets is unsustainable. All arguments as to the merits of expenditures must take a back seat to the reality that most residents are financially tapped out and cannot tolerate any more tax increases.

Each individual should consider one fact when voting on the budget. Look at your tax bill from ten years ago… then ask... “Can I continue to live in Newtown if the yearly tax increases we have experienced in the past continue?”

Remember the clever ratchet mechanism (Minimum Budget Requirement) given to us by lawmakers forbids the education budget from ever going down! That translates into the budget approved last year is cast in stone and can never be reduced...ever.

Freeze it this year and begin the process of starving the beast.

Vote No.

Ronald Polard

5 Point O’ Rocks Road, Newtown                                 April 12, 2012