Dear Editor:

SPLOST is not a yes-yes. SPLOST is a no-no.

During a time when most families and businesses are forced to make do with less, our panicked politicians tell us they cannot possibly make do with a 5 percent sales tax instead of 7 percent one. Also, Troup County really does need the money – for a $3 million bike trail – and they simply must have a half-million for another recreation area on West Point Lake. (We have shut down a lot of recreation areas because we can’t afford them and they think we need another recreation area we can’t afford.)

I realize that politicians have never met a tax they didn’t like, but politicians love sales taxes because they can honestly say, “We are adding only a penny” or in this case, two pennies. Those two pennies are added to everything we buy – even food, clothing and other necessities. If you family spends $10,000 a year on food, clothing, etc., you will give the county $200 in sales tax pennies. Can you afford $200 in pennies?

Some believe that our government officials are operating just about as efficiently as they can. Of course, everyone feels they are doing the best they can until they are forced to do otherwise. The taxpayers are being forced to do otherwise, and our government should as well.

We also are told we need to maintain our momentum. In Troup County, we seem to be doing that because we are maintaining our double-digit unemployment rate. When we are going downhill, we have all the momentum we need.

When the politicians want to continue to spend and spend even though we have high unemployment, high home foreclosures, and higher and higher food prices, SPLOST takes on a new meaning. SPLOST is the sound made when big government steps on the little people.

If we defeat the new SPLOST effort, we might not have a new bike trail, but we will have more money that we can spend.

Mike Waller

Mooty Bridge Road, laGrange