LETTERS: THIS SOUNDS LIKE MORE TAX-AND-SPEND

To the editor:

I am a new resident of Cape Girardeau County, and I hope all of our county officials are not like County Auditor Weldon Macke and Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones. It is unfortunate that these two men have jumped on the tax-and-spend liberal Democrat bandwagon of taxing the Internet.

With two weeks of Christmas shopping remaining, Cape Girardeau County has received $224,000, or 4.7 percent, more from sales taxes in 1999 than it received in 1998. However, Mr. Macke and Mr. Jones have decided to threaten county residents with higher property taxes unless they support Internet taxation.

Why do government officials always look for ways to confiscate more of the public's money rather than find more efficient ways to operate government? In this particular case, Cape Girardeau County has more money than last year from sales taxes. Why is there such a panic to confiscate more money?

We, the people, already work four months out of the year to pay our income taxes. With all the taxes imposed on us by all levels of government, we spend nearly 60 percent of our incomes paying for a government that is inefficient. There is no need to confiscate and waste more of the taxpayers' money. The need is to find better ways to operate the government and allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money.

ROB JOHNSON

Cape Girardeau