Letters to the Editor

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Dear residents,

Thursday night I gave a speech before the Stephenville City Council regarding the property tax rate.  It is printed below for everyone’s consideration.

Mayor Weldon and members of the Stephenville City Council, I am here tonight in favor of cutting the property tax rate.  I am in favor of cutting the property tax rate because people in our community are suffering like never before, and they are suffering like never before because of a plethora of high taxes.  We suffer due to federal taxes, state taxes, county taxes, school taxes, city taxes and more.  We have so many taxes that it is impossible to name them all.   We do not need higher taxes, and we do not need our already high taxes staying at exorbitantly high rates.  To put it bluntly, we, the long suffering citizens of Stephenville, feel that we have been taxed enough already, and I call upon each of you to lower the property tax rate now.

In the past, there have been those who believed that higher taxes and bigger government were what was best for the people.  They argued for large scale projects that spent money on monuments of governmental excess.  They seemed to identify with the political philosophy that in order to help someone, you must first take from them via taxation.  This political ideology would be humorous if it were not so damaging.  In contrast to this, I would argue that the individual is better off being allowed to keep more of their own hard earned money in the first place, lest it fall off into the Bosque.

If people are allowed to keep more of their own hard earned money via a lower property tax rate, then they will have more money to spend on food, clothing, energy, transportation, medical care, and yes, most directly, housing.  If people have more money to spend on their own well being then less would be needed from the government.  Lower taxes have a direct and immediate correlation with improving the lives of the people, and higher taxes have a direct correlation with taking from the lives of the people.  This is because more government “help” means more spending, and more government spending means more revenues are needed, and if more revenues are needed then taxes must go up to pay for this new higher spending, and the cycle of destruction continues.  I fully reject this road to serfdom whereby the people exist to grow the size of government and enrich the lives of those involved in government.  The government exists, in theory, to improve the lives of the people and not the other way around.

There is no issue more important to me than lowering the property tax rate.  Please, listen to my words and see my actions.  You can have a direct and immediate impact on the lives of your citizens.  I encourage each and every one of you to vote for smaller government, responsible spending, and a lower property tax rate.  I know that if you do you will improve the lives of the people, and ultimately, in the end of all things, isn’t that what your service to the community should be all about?

Thank you,

Justin Allison

1 Comment

  1. I don’t like paying taxes either. However, many Stephenville’s roads are in terrible condition. Lots of neighborhoods have very few street lights and sidewalks. Doubt any of that will improve if the city reduces it’s revenue.

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