Three Quick Items

Three items in the news this week caught my attention.  Two of them came from the Anchorage Daily News.

The first is a report that of the 75 primary care physicians from Anchorage only 13 of them will accept new Medicare patients.  Again here is another indicator as to why we (all of us) need to work on fixing the health care system.  

If you are worried about the Federal Government debt  and how that will effect us think about what health care cost are going to be doing to our income.

The second note was also caught in the Anchorage paper.  People in Anchorage are discussing if senior citizens should receive a higher property tax break.

Some may think it strange considering my age but I am against any property tax break based on ones age.  Property taxes stem from a time when that was he only measure of ones wealth was their property.  It taxed all your property / wealth such as your house your barns, your cows, your slaves, your house.  It was the only revenue that a local unit of government could collect.  This is how they payed for education 

Today the measure of property is not a measure and surely we can find a better way to pay our taxes.  So if they want to give a tax break to someone it should be based on their ability (income) and not on how much property the have.

KFC and potholes.  Saw a news report that KFC was paying to have potholes filled in their home city of Louisville, Ky.  After it is filled they spray on their logo with a message that they paid for the repair.  The logo wares of "quickly".

I do not want KFC or any other company having to pay to fix potholes.  That is governments job.  I understand that all government budgets are tight but they have certain obligations and filling potholes is one of them.

What we need is a debate on how to pay for the services we get from the government.  Should property be taxed and for what purpose.  What services should local government pay for what should the state pay for and what should the federal government pay for.

Today we have our elected representatives so fearful of voting for a tax increase to apply for a needed service like garbage pick up they will charge you a fee.

Not saying that we will all pay less taxes, we may even pay more, but my goal here is pay them correctly.