Letter: Adjust attitude on paying taxes

Monday, Sept. 10, 2001 | 9:22 a.m.

My day of military service was in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Our friends and relatives in Kentucky at that time believed that two years of service was normal duty for a citizen. We contributed two years of our life and I was paid $76 a month. Now that I am old, the United States no longer wants my behind in the U.S. Army, but they do want for me to contribute my taxes to pay for the $5 trillion debt. Military programs are the largest portion of this debt and I am glad to pay my share. But I am disappointed in the attitude of some of my fellow citizens. Many of those who point fingers at "draft dodgers" are trying to get their own tax share reduced.

I now live in Las Vegas. We have a number of people who have moved here from California, New York, etc., and some of these "transplants" have a near-hysteria about local taxes. The largest local program causing taxes is schools. Many of the new people have already seen their children educated somewhere else; they personally see no need for decent schools. I wish to point out that the active military since Korea has consisted mostly of poor, white Southern people and black people from all over the country. A look at demographics tells us that the next "big one" will again consist of such people plus the new immigrants. We should support schools for that reason alone. In addition, our country is in a global competition and we need good students to become productive citizens.

There is a notion that tax cuts would stimulate the economy. If a tax stimulus is really needed, why not just send a Christmas check to all veterans, or to veterans who were fired upon. And how about a federal check to all teachers or at least to the inner-city teachers.

JOHN ZANONE