Dear Editor,

Thomas Jefferson said, “I place the economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our leaders load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

We should have listened, but we didn’t, and now it’s probably too late. Here are a few points to ponder:

1. As much as 70 percent of the cost of a retail item in the store is already paid in taxes. The miner, the trucker, the advertiser, the packager, the wholesaler, the retailer, everybody in the production chain is paying taxes and fees at every step. Sales tax is only the last insult and is mostly a tax on taxes.

2. Almost half the price of gasoline is tax.

3. Estate taxes are a tax on property that has already been taxed at every turn.

4. Property tax is in effect a government lease on your property. Try not paying if you don’t believe me.

Consider the fact that over half the American work force is employed by some governmental agency. How did we get to this point? Just one little tax at a time.

Is it reversible? I doubt it.

I believe that the economic implosion is near, and you can speed it up by voting for just one more little tax. In the words of Alexis de Tocqueville in 1840, we are reduced to a “flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” All together now, baaaaa …

Ross L. Talbott

New Castle