Letter: Tax burden for schools should fall on everyone

Monday, May 13, 2002 | 8:45 a.m.

In her May 9 letter, Mary Lou Seafeldt complains that it is unfair that parents living in apartments with kids in school don't pay property taxes to support their kids' education. She also stated that the tax burden for education should fall squarely on parents and not on the many senior citizens living in Las Vegas on fixed income.

First, anyone who owns real property in Las Vegas is subjected to property taxes, including landlords who owned apartments. The renter who pays rent to the landlord is also paying property taxes in the rent check. If property taxes increase then the landlord will increase the renter's rent. Therefore, those parents living in apartments with children attending school are paying the landlord's property taxes.

Second, Ms. Seafeldt's argument that senior citizens should be exempted from paying public education of our children reminds me of a quote of Benjamin Disraeli, who remarked, "Upon the education of the people of this country the fate this country depends." It is education that gives the intellectual and moral support of our form of government. By educating its youthful citizens, this country is giving its young citizens the hopes and aspirations to succeed prior generations in their future endeavors.

The only way to ensure the survival of our country in the future is for all of its citizens to support public education. A quote from Edward Everett best states this position, "Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army."

Last, I would like to ask Ms. Seafeldt, who I would assume benefited from public education: Did she experience the same resentment she displays today of those senior citizens who paid for her education through their property taxes while she attended public school years ago?

RICHARD BRATTAIN