21-Jul-2003
Hon. Mayor and Commissioners,
City of DeLand,
120 S. Florida Ave.,
DeLand, FLA 32720.
To the Commission:
Staff is proposing a tax increase of over 8% this year, which I can assure you is rather more than most of the taxpayers received as a raise this year. Perhaps the bureaucracy, with their near automatic pay increases and job upgrades such as we'll see later this evening, is so insulated from the real world that they no longer even care.
What we have here is the usual tendency for big government to grow bigger. It is appropriate, perhaps, that City Hall is now named for that quintessential big-government pusher, the big Rig himself. And, surely, had I known how ugly the sign was going to be, I'd have spoken more vigorously on the matter. Still, though eyesore it be, it does remind us of what happens when government gets out of control.
Out-of-control government does things like swallow whole city blocks. It increases taxes at a rate several times that of the public's income. And, it doesn't care. The bureaucrats are in charge, and the elected officials just do what they're told.
Yours,
Tanner Andrews