Public officials should have to sell voters on tax increases

I moved from the Cincinnati area five years ago this month, and the one aspect that residents warned me about was the prospect of high property taxes. Since I have been here, I have noted the continued rise of my property taxes. The one aspect was the raising of taxes by the local school boards and local borough governments with virtually no input from the local taxpayers.

Sure, we can attend the board meetings and borough meetings to give our two cents of input, but it seems the members have already made up their minds before the meetings are ever called to order. If we don't like their decisions, we can always vote them out in the next election. However, by the time the election is held, the voter apathy is so profound, the public officials get away with raising taxes because they feel the voters will forget.

There is a solution. In Ohio, anytime a school board or county or city decides taxes must be raised, this proposal must be put before the local voters for approval. It seems to be working. Sure there are problems such as if the tax is voted down, certain services will suffer. But the department that is proposing an increase in the tax rate must justify the reason for this increase and sell it to the voters.

I suggest that maybe this be taken into consideration.

ED SMOTHERS
Carnegie

---

Santorum's hubris

So now Sen. Rick Santorum is using the word "hubris" to describe the Democrats' efforts to preserve the parliamentary traditions of the Senate ("Frist Starts Countdown to Final Vote on Nominee," May 20). The definition of hubris is "overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance." So if anyone knows hubris, Santorum does. His picture ought to be in the dictionary right next to the word.

Every reasonable person in America should be offended by his suggestion that the Senate Democrats can be compared to Hitler, when in truth, the Republicans are moving this nation closer to fascism and oligarchy every day. It seems to me that hypocrisy has become so ingrained in Republican rhetoric that they don't even recognize it as an un-Christian characteristic anymore.

GEORGE YURGEC
South Park

---

Troubling trend

Editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers' effort to diminish Newsweek's failure to verify its Quran desecration claim (May 17) again shows his liberal bias, just as the rantings of Ann Coulter show her almost equally irrational addiction to all things right-wing. This is not a problem, though, because no matter how misguided they both are, their viewpoints appear on editorial pages and are readily seen as opinion.

The problem with Newsweek's Quran debacle, and CBS's problem last fall with the National Guard memos, is that the reports were presented as fact, rushed to print or broadcast either to promote an agenda or, worse, to scoop the competition.

At Penn State in the mid-1970s, one of my most scholarly journalism professors lectured that Woodward and Bernstein's reliance on unidentified sources could be the beginning of a troubling trend that might eventually undermine the credibility of the entire news media.

VAUGHN GILBERT
Elizabeth Township

---

Are we zombies?

Rob Rogers' May 17 cartoon was excellent! But where is the outrage of the American people, whose leadership has found it necessary to use so much violence against so many people in so many places of the world? How can the American people let the leaders in "our" government do this in our name?

What are we -- a society of well-programmed zombies? Where is our humanity? Don't we owe it at least to our conscience, our god, to speak, to act against this criminality?

Thank you, Mr. Rogers and the Post-Gazette!

DOROTHY SVITESIC
Springdale Borough

---

Sharing the wealth

Paul Krugman's Saturday column is always good for a chuckle, but last week he outdid himself ("Always Low Wages. Always," May 14). First he lambasted Wal-Mart for not paying workers enough, then he ripped the Bush administration for attempting to "kill" Social Security via privatization.

If Wal-Mart is really ripping off its work force, the presumed beneficiaries would be shareholders. As part of his plan for fixing Social Security, President Bush wants more Americans to become shareholders. These blatantly contradictory positions demonstrate that it is Mr. Krugman who is truly "motivated by ideology."

CHARLIE SMITH
Marshall

---

Incensed by cartoon

I am outraged by the May 14 cartoon by Rob Rogers. I would guess Mr. Rogers has no family in the military.

I have a son in the Army (101st Airborne) who is preparing to possibly go to Iraq, and I found no humor whatsoever in this cartoon.

No recruiter talked my son into joining; he wanted to defend our country. Our children are out there risking their lives for this country, and Mr. Rogers jokes about the possibility of death. This cartoon circulated around my workplace and everyone I spoke with found it very distasteful.

Before you print something so offensive about the military, stop and think of the thousands of people who can't sleep at night worrying about their loved ones, not to mention the men and women who risk their lives every day for our freedom!

LINDA BUNCE
Ohio Township

---

Keep them away

The May 12 article "Errant Cessna Puts Capital on 'Red Alert' ": There is one very simple way to prevent or at least minimize such errors, which cause unnecessary evacuations, red alerts and terror for many. Although, since 9/11, general aviation planes have not been permitted to land or take off from Washington Reagan National Airport, private aircraft should be prohibited from flying anywhere near, at or into any of the large airports serving Washington and Baltimore. They have no business landing in or even passing near these highly strategic airports.

Even innocent mistakes can cause distress, as we have seen before. A non-functioning radio can cause the plane to be shot down, as almost happened here.

Let the private aircraft land at other designated small airports, but keep them away from the capital. If we are on such an alert status that even simple mistakes by a small plane cause evacuation (and Vice President Dick Cheney has to speed away to a secure location -- imagine that!), then keep the private fliers out of the area.

How many more times do we have to witness these false alarms caused by amateurs?

W.H. ENGELLEITNER
Moon