The Jan. 11 editorial, "Stuck in park," seems aimed mainly at St. Charles County. As usual, these editorials have the same recurring theme: St. Charles County is resisting an election on a new sales tax due to "anti-tax sentiments in heavily Republican St. Charles County."
This new tax resistance will not be limited to St. Charles nor to Republicans. All regional voters have vivid recent memories of other do-good taxes that, once levied, find the proceeds siphoned off elsewhere. Once levied, these tax proceeds will end up in some marquee-sounding group that will have a bevy of highly paid vice presidents (see Science Center), surely have somebody named Archibald with a lucrative employment contract, plenty of "ghost employees" and, of course, many Charlie Dooley supporters. It will surely take several years for all this pork to be detected and the surely built-in waste bemoaned.
That is why this regional approval is doomed from the start. St. Charles County is just jumping to be first in line in opposition. The cost of an election is merely a pure red herring. The real reason is nobody wants this pork barrel tax, wherever they live and pay a ton of other altruistic-sounding taxes.
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Keith Mattern • Town and Country
