Obama’s “hope,” outrageous conservatives … Letters to the editor

Pick of the day: Tax trickery at work in Virginia

Posturing over not raising taxes represents gross political pandering that, sadly, still works.

Starting with the “No Car Tax” scam, lawmakers consider tolls, unfunded mandates, more fees, robbing Peter to pay Paul, fiscal irresponsibility (Virginia Retirement System tampering), hiding real costs, pilfering from local services (tapping sheriff’s department ticket revenues), and shifting state responsibilities to already overburdened local governments.

All of this ongoing picking from citizens’ pockets still constitutes basic taxation.

Cutting taxes and reducing revenue has never worked long term, creates budget nightmares and ranks low for job creation, but sounds good and diverts focus away from real consequences — especially before the next election.

The current TV ad touting Virginia’s prosperity perpetuates those bogus “facts” while still trading Meals on Wheels for another program and forcing local layoffs of taxpaying public employees with predictable negative ripple effects.

Not a poor state, Virginia has quite low comparable taxes. A fully transparent, up-front, minor adjustment to the sales tax (also paid by nonresidents), written with minimal impact on the needy, beats the endless tricks that continue to rob us — especially average Virginians.

Fiddling with hidden taxes while bragging about freezing the obvious ones constitutes fraud, the gospel of the gullible.

E.A. PAULL

AMHERST